If you are feeling:

1. Tired of your life as a series of days laden with responsibilities and duties with no way out?
2. Fed up with a meaningless life of mechanically repeating things like machines, day in and day out, nothing new and interesting?
3. Really exhausted mentally and physically with pain, disability, sadness, anxiety and depression…? Or
4. Lonely, lost, stranger in the world around you when you move and surround yourself with relatives.
5. Fear, instability chasing you day and night at work or while being right in your home?
6. Breathlessly chasing with the remaining years that seems to shorten at faster and yet not able to find yourself doing anything meaningful? Or so much to do yet so little?…
7. Or, even feel loving life and vitality of life but still looking for thrills or unexpected and great discoveries?

I had just returned from a mountainous area over 7,000ft altitude, as beautiful as heaven. There I found a magic potion that could solve it all. It started when I enrolled in the Bodhisattva Support Group to sustain and help about 250 Temporaty Leaving-Home Monk/Nun this year, they go up the mountain with our Venerable Teacher to cultivate preparing for the World Peace Gathering and Mandala in Long Beach 2016 .

Weeks before my departure, I had received countless texts, emails, and phone calls from organizers in Orange County and San Jose. I was informed of every detail big and small to know about the trip and things to bring with me. The organizers planned and arranged everything: transportation and relocation, accommodation, trip schedules, and countless other issues. And, I didn’t do anything. Just follow the instructions and everything arranged by the organizers.

On the day I left San Jose, I only had to get in the car to sit still, not run around, and answer “yes” on roll call. Everything else has been handled by our brothers and sisters. Arriving in Orange County, I witnessed a rather hilarious barber shop like party echoing with laughter. (I thought people would cry shedding their hair. That night, I and the San Jose group were moved back to sleep at the hotel so that early the next morning I would return to IB Center for our bus to the camp.

As with the day before, everything from dinner, breakfast, hotel reservations, getting room keys, rooms, transporting from the iB Center to the hotel and vice versa, and as with so many other little things had been arranged by the organizer. I just worked, ate well, sleep good (but get up on time) and get in the car sitting still, not run around.

The road to the camp is like a heavenly scenic. The mountains are beautiful and it get colder and colder. In many places there is snow. However, I fell asleep halfway through because I had been sleep deprived for two days. When I arrive to help guiding everyone to retrieve their luggage to their room. I realize that some people had to go to camp way ahead to bring as much furniture, equipment needed to make maps, signage and allocate the accommodation.

I get a work schedule and assign to a team. There are many working groups that share different responsibilities such as the group:

• Serving food (the camp has a chef cooking vegetarian food three meals a day, we only help to prepare the food and serve during meals.)
• Arrange cushions for Dharma studies, Mandala and vacuum the hall.
• Sweep the walkway into the hall and the shoe rack area outside the hall, restroom and rehydrating room.
• Prepare the translation equipment; printout or copy the lessons.
• Medical (the sisters who have medical training, medicine, acupuncture are on duty in the medical room from morning to night).

The Bodhisattva Support Group works but still has time to attend nearly all of the altruistic monastic training programs. Each day of cultivation are usually from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. In addition to three meals and a lunch break, the program includes bowing, physical exercises, four meditation sessions, dharma studies, tea meditation, and Mandala. Ten days in the camp is like a whirlwind, and I really lived in those days. I’ve never laughed so much since I was a kid. I wanted to cry many times when I witnessed and felt a strange power of love and devotion between Master and disciples, as well as the strange power of a sangha after only ten days; or to stand in front of the majestic beauty of nature; or the pale, frightened faces of my two sick roommates that sought me out the dark with their flashlight. On the day I was about to leave the camp, looking at the long list of the clean-up tasks, I realized how much effort went into organizing and arranging for the 10 days of camp. The day I went down the mountain, I felt sad as if I had lost a precious object.

You may be asking how this magic potion helped me? Let me summarize:

1. I no longer see responsibilities and duties as burdens but as a blessing to receive from this life.
2. Not only have I found the meaning of life, but I’ve found it interesting in every step, every little thing I do daily.
3. I slept well, ate well, and my stomach was hungry all the time. The mouth often just grins naturally often without trying. Now you know how good my health is.
4. I no longer feel lonely or lost. I was a drop of water merging with countless drop of water creating the floodwaters that were rushing into the ocean.
5. Fears and instability are falling rapidly on the way to the sea.
6. I don’t feel the need to chase anymore. I appreciate the moments I live.
7. I’ve never felt that much meaning in my life. I have found feelings of life. It was during my 10 days on the mountain that I saw my heart squeezed so tightly that it stopped beating for minutes, and then exploded millions of brilliant flowers flying all over the mountains and forests. My tears have flowed many times with emotion, joy at the wonders, the beauty of this life through the stories I hear, the images I witnessed and through smiles, eyes and hand holdings very quietly. I have also discovered many things, but the most significant thing is that the effort, time, and dedication to preparing and performing a Mandala Festival that I was lucky enough to attend was beyond imagination.

I joined the Bodhisattva Support Group because I was very grateful to our Venerable Master and all our brothers and sisters in the CSS. I once thought of drawing hundreds of colorful thank you cards and send them to Head Quarter. In hindsight, this doesn’t help anyone. While I participate in the Bodhisattva Support Group, perhaps I lent a hand for the brothers and sisters. I embarked with the mindset “to give”. In fact, I gave so little yet received so much in return. You may still be wondering where I got the magic potion?

With such a limited page, I beg you to please register for Temporary Leaving-Home Monk/Nun or for Bodhisattva Support Group in 2018. I’ll take you to find your own magic potion. Wishing you a good 2018 with plenty of time to take care of your body and mind, plenty of time to cherish all your loved ones and at the same time to sip all the joys that come to you.