5 PRECEPTS CEREMONY

We are very happy that Hyon Gak Sunim will be holding a 5 precepts ceremony after the formal retreat is ended. If you wish to apply to take the 5 precepts it is also required that you participate the full length of the retreat if you haven't already attended retreat's with Sunim earlier. Specify in the application if you wish to take the 5 precepts which are:

I vow to abstain from taking life

I vow to abstain from taking things not given

I vow to abstain from misconduct done in lust

I vow to abstain from lying

I vow to abstain from intoxicants, taken to induce heedlessness

Here is some word about 5 precepts ceremony from master Hyon Gak Sunim:

Practicing Zen has often been likened to traveling in a fast car, or taking a jet on a roadless path to Nirvana, flying in a rocket to the limitlessness of empty space. But every great vehicle, no matter its power, requires an effective navigation system. Without a clear navigation system, then this meditation Porsche, this jet of Zen rocket can also take us to a bad place. The first vow we speak, immediately after wake-up every morning, is "Sentient beings are numberless; we vow to save them all." But how do we accomplish this navigation of service and life among dreaming, suffering beings?

In 2,500 years of Buddhist teaching, the Precepts are our navigation system for employing the power of meditation to help ourselves, this world. They are not rules or laws, as in legalistic restrictions. We commonly describe the Precepts as functioning like traffic laws, the basic understandings of how we should flow in a given situation to optimize arrival of ourselves and all sentient beings in a place of comfort and infinite calm -- attaining our True Nature. The Precepts make a clear life for ourselves and our Community, and help establish our correct function in this world, from moment to moment.

Taking the Five Precepts is considered "Taking Refuge (in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha)". It is the basic, universal rite of entering the Buddhist mind-sciences, as a faith in direct experience of unmediated reality -- Dharma. This ceremony also formalizes one's link with a certain Dharma Teacher or lineage, as mentor and as spiritual base.

Please consider downloading the Five Precepts into your soul's eternal hard drive. It is a set of navigation wisdoms, based on over 2,500 years of meditation and practice.