Recital Offering on Vesak Day!

After the inaugural online Vesak Day Celebration, close to 50 students from bilingual classes joyously stayed online for another special event – recital offering of a section in Lamrim on “Going for Refuge to the Three Jewels”. Originally formed to participate in this year’s Lamrim recitation competition, the thoughtful class monitors and representatives combined their creative juices together to create this unique opportunity for us to offer the Lamrim texts we had diligently memorized on this auspicious day. We also bathed the Buddha together virtually, recollect the causes and importance of taking refuge in the Triple Gem, and ended with cheery notes of insightful praises.

To set our motivation, Venerable Ben Si shared that Vesak Day commemorates the birth, enlightenment, and Parinirvāna of Shakyamuni Buddha, whose goal since birth till after attaining Buddhahood was always to benefit all sentient beings. He quoted the following text from Lamrim on “The good qualities of the Buddha's mind”,

“In the same way that living beings are bound inescapably by the afflictions, so is the Sage bound by great compassion, which thus arises continuously as he beholds the suffering of living beings.”,

And encouraged us to make aspirations to arise our spirit of enlightenment and be like Buddha. Venerable Ben Si’s uplifting guidance helped us see the significance of the recital offering, as the greatest gift from Buddha is his teachings to help us overcome our afflictions and through memorizing the dharma text, we are placing his teachings in our hearts and in our minds, and to remember his great compassion for us.

Our joyous attitude soared higher as we reflected on the importance of taking refuge through watching videos on how a blue crab had to repeatedly risked it’s life throughout the day to escape from treacherous predators and currents, akin to the endless sufferings in cyclic existence, and Venerable Ru Jun’s discourse on the wondrous benefits of taking refuge in the three jewels – to be fully protected from all miseries and planting causes for true happiness!

May Buddha’s teachings remain in this world for a long time, and we look forward to more of such meritorious activities with our virtuous friends! Mega rejoice to everyone! 🌻

Penned by: Tan Poh Jee (15G027E) And students of 18Z081E, 19Z096E, 20Z134E