Thank You Bhante

This evening, similar to what Ambrose mentioned in his blog, I did something which I always wanted to do but have nv done it. I brought my parents to the Buddhist Library for meditation.

Since 2 yrs ago, I have the urge to ask Sayalay how I can gradually introduce buddhism to my parents. We have spent so much time to propagate the Dharma in the campus, organising camps, welcoming juniors/freshies, leading Dharma circles, running MCs, but what have we actually done to help our own family in Dharma learnings?

This morning, my dad told me he wanted to try meditation. Straight away, i thought of the weekly tuesday meditation sitting at BL. We decided to go there.

We were greeted by Bhante personally, as I explained to him that my parents are totally new to buddhism and meditation. He was happy to see us and decided to teach meditation specially this evening. He started off with a 20 minutes Dharma talk on meditation, followed by teaching the Metta Meditation. He subsequently led us in Metta Meditation for about 20 minutes.

After metta meditation, he proceeded to teach us on mindfulness meditation. I guess becos he knew my parents are newbies to meditation, and so he struck the bell exactly after 30 minutes of zazen. I am grateful to Bhante for specially catering this session for my parents. I hope the other participants did not mind as the sitting today was specially cut short and 'interrupted' as a result of his teachings.

I am not sure if my parents can understand what Bhante said, but ideally speaking, there shld be no langugage barrier to the Dharma, haha. They later told me that they could briefly and roughly tell what Bhante was saying. My dad feedbacked that he was able to concentrate well on counting of his breaths while my mum said she experienced the feeling of 'floating' and 'emptiness' during the meditation. I was like "WOW, is that possible???". I guess its too early to tell anything conclusive on their first sitting. However, both of them enjoyed their sittings this evening and are looking forward to the next session :D

Oh to fans of Ajahn Brahm, Bhante told us that Ajahn will be coming down to Buddhist Library next Sunday afternoon to give a Dharma talk. I hope the 2 storey building can take it... tat time when Sayalay came to BL, it was like............