Creating Seeds of Good Karma

When we genuinely wish another person wellness and happiness we are creating the seeds of good Karma and the seeds of Peace and Happiness. Just think! – and I know this may seem a little far fetched but worth contemplating – if every person in the world took just ten minutes to wish another person Happiness and Wellness then for ten minutes this world would be crime and violence free for those ten minutes!

The Kindness Cards and Wish Cards are ways by which we can sow seeds of peace and create seeds of Good Karma in our lives. I just love watching the face of somebody light up like just-switched-on-Christmas-tree lights when I give them a Wish Card or Kindness Card with a beautiful Peace Butterfly on it.

The gift of Happiness is one of the most precious gifts we are able to give another and even more when another contemplates what has just happened to them and then wants to pass on the gift to yet other people. This is at the heart of the Mindfulness Meditation of Tonglen. In Tonglen we become Mindful of the suffering, pain, disappointment and despair of others and cause this dissolve our self-cherishing/ego nature – a bit like an effervescent soluble aspirin dissolving in a glass of water. Then we imagine ourselves to be a Wishing Jewel wishing the causes and conditions of happiness for others. For a split moment when we take on the suffering of another and become the wishing jewel we dissolve another piece of the self-cherishing part of ourselves which locks us into our own cocoon of despair and unhappiness. The Peace Butterfly in this Mindfulness process becomes an apt symbol.

The T’ai Shen Centre will send you packs of Peace Butterflies on Kindness and Wishing Cards. Your own kindness in offering us a gift in return continues to turn the wheel of universal Peace and Happiness for all and at the same time enable us to reach out to poorer rural Chinese children in need of education. Sow some seeds of Peace and Good Karma today.

I wish you deep Happiness.

Peace Butterfly Kindness Cards and Wish Cards can be obtained from:
http://www.taishendo.com/Peace-Butterfly-Project.html

Chinese Temple Stay

Along with the increase of interest in Buddhism in the West and the desire to go deeper into ancient cultures it is becoming more popular for travellers to have a “Temple Stay” at a Buddhist Temple while on their Asian tour.

In China approximately one hour drive from Hangzhou nestled amongst bamboo forested mountains is the small town of Zaoxi. A short one kilometer walk out of Zaoxi will bring you to the tranquil Guang Jue Temple. By Chinese temple standards this is a small temple but by no means insignificant. It is a temple in the Pure Land Tradition and offers a tranquility and simplicity not often found in the bigger more well-known bustling temples of larger cities.



A Temple Stay offers the opportunity to get out of the smoggy, noisy and jostling cities to the fresh air of the country side and drink in a part of the Chinese cultural heritage of Buddhism. And talking about “drinking in” one cannot simply resist the array of local Green Teas with their aromatic scent and flavours in this region. Perhaps more important than pleasing the senses is a opportunity to please the mind by taking some time to slow down the pace a bit. At Guang Jue Temple after the autumn morning mist has lifted and the birds begin their own chant in surrounding trees your mind can begin to absorb the tranquility and space. I often think as travellers that we travel to foreign countries and cultures on two levels. One is the level of the worldly and material taking thousands of kilobytes of photos and buying souvenirs that may eventually end up on garage sales. The other is on the inner deeper level where there is often a yearning to find something in another culture to bring us closer to the warmth of a real and abiding happiness. A Temple Stay in a Chinese temple offers an opportunity for depth and inner searching.


Of course there are the travellers who simply want to find a cheap and different place to stay. At $US30.00 per night a temple stay at Guang Jue becomes an attractive alternative to staying in a more costly hotel and being touched at the same time by warm Chinese Buddhist hospitality.



There are those who may even want to make staying at Guang Jue their main reason for a holiday and partake in a short course in Mindfulness Healing, Mindfulness Meditation, Qigong or Naikan or to get rid of the knots in the mental muscles (not to mention the physical muscles as we have good Traditional Chinese Medicine and Massage here too!!). The short courses vary in cost but are all well within pocket’s reach.

Thinking more of a Temple Stay in China, now? I welcome your email for a chat.

Malcolm Hunt is facilitator in Mindfulness Studies at the T'ai Shen Centre.