2017-06-04 Venerable Phuoc Tinh

The Venerable shares his personal experience along with ancient Buddhist practice methods of successfully handling life's changes and impermanence. Key components of this talk are creating harmony in relationships by first caring for our own body, mind and feelings. In described marriage ceremony, "mixing earth and lighting a candle" becomes a valuable metaphor of individuals coming together, transcending such differences as cultural backgrounds and race with right effort for a successful union.

We are taught to live with greater happiness by having: faith, precepts/trainings, generosity and insight. The art of happiness is a skill that takes effort; much more effort than the art of fear, despair and anger. We are encouraged to begin practicing when we're young, to learn and mature the practice of true love, known as the 4 immeasurable minds; cultivating love for ourselves and others. By learning to love ourselves when young, we can avoid the complex of inferiority and take better care of our body, and other 4 skandhas. We learn that deep feelings of self-care are developed during childhood with parental acts of unconditional love. Our self-care and happiness are gifts for those around us.