With a full heart Rev. WonGong expresses her deep gratitude for those who sustain the North Carolina Temple through monthly donations. She details how this community has been supported by hard-earned funds that came from minimum wage and odd jobs, to her intention to invest in the future by creating an endowment.

Please consider making a contribution here:

https://www.wonbuddhismnc.org

Rev. WonGong of the North Carolina Temple gives us an open and honest assessment of the quality of her own practice in this dharma talk. She has come to realize that measuring one's meditation practice can be as simple as observing just how many thoughts cary our minds away (the fewer the better). Rev. WonGong presents practical ways we can achieve a good quality meditation practice.

https://www.wonbuddhismnc.org

Member's Talk by Douglas Conkling @ Won Dharma Center

October 17, 2021

https://wondharmacenter.org/

Rebecca Kameny (Won Hee), a member of the North Carolina Temple, explores the human experience of disappointment and how it can block us from experiencing equanimity. Using thoughtful examples, she shows how the Threefold Practice can help us navigate our way out of the tangle of disappointments we sometimes create for ourselves.

https://www.wonbuddhismnc.org

Rev. WonGong of the North Carolina Temple explains how the healthiest tree in the garden, an Arborvitae, is the one that is close to a water tap. Proximity to a popular resource insures this evergreen gets lots of loving attention, and it flourishes because of this. Temple practitioners can likewise nourish each other by meeting together, calling or texting. "We are one, we are whole."

https://www.wonbuddhismnc.org/

In her Dharma talk, Rev. ZiYoung, Kyomunim at the North Carolina Temple, reflects on Buddhadharma in everyday life and discovers that Buddhadharma already 'is' everyday life! We can recognize this fact by "Requiting the Graces with One Mind" as explained by Master Daesan.

Rev. ZiYoung gives us personal examples of what it means to requite graces and come to see, for ourselves, the inherent wholeness of universal principles encapsulated in Il-Won-Sang.

https://www.wonbuddhismnc.org

Pete Warshaw (Won JeeHo), a member of the North Carolina Temple, discusses the reasons for and path taken in updating Won Buddhism's entry in Wikipedia

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Won_Buddhism).

Pete emphasizes that updating and clarifying this important resource is a community effort, and he also reminds us that many current practitioners were introduced to Won Buddhism through small windows in the online world.

https://www.wonbuddhismnc.org/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Won_Buddhism

Desi Adams (Won JaIn), a visiting practitioner from the Philadelphia Temple, shares her experience engaging in a very personal aspiration, one with which so many of us can relate, which is refraining from interrupting others when they are speaking. Changing habits is not a trivial process. Desi found wisdom in The Scripture of the Founding Master, Chapter Three: Practice, verse 30 (http://wonscripture.org/Main/SubIndex/daejong0330). She has come to know that, while not easy, changing habits is a mind activity made easier via solid practice steps carried out over a looooong time, as Desi clearly explains in this motivational talk.

https://www.wonbuddhismnc.org

http://wonbuddhismpa.org

Brain Adams (Won SungDeok), a visiting practitioner from the Philadelphia Temple, shares his experience with chanting in the Won Buddhist tradition. His initial apprehension melted away during a retreat when he discovered what he calls "…the sincerity of whole-hearted chanting." Brian's chanting practice really took off, however, when a Kyomunim suggested he chant from his "Dan Jeon" ("Dantian" 단전 - 丹田 or "elixir field" just below the navel). When the mind drops away, and there is a union of the body and the mind, "one-pointed mind" in chanting can arise.

https://www.wonbuddhismnc.org

http://wonbuddhismpa.org

In a very personal reflection of her own experience dealing with the possibility of being a Covid carrier herself, Rev. WonGong expands upon this one single contemporary fear, to discriminatory thoughts in general, their genesis, and practice for resolving thoughts that smother love and compassion for others.

Compassion is innate to human beings, but obscured by "…fear, anxiety, and insecurity, to defend and protect our sense of self…" Rev. WonGong details the specific practice that melts away the "four false notions that come from distorted thinking" and helps lead us to the loveing kindness about which Master Sotaesan refers to in the scriptures (http://wonscripture.org/Main/SubIndex/daejong0802).