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Lama Zopa Rinpoche with Monica Hung, Aptos, California, US, 2016. Photo courtesy of Monica Hung.
Tse Chen Ling, the FPMT center in San Francisco, California, US, has expanded their offerings with a new class. Ven. Carol Corradi, center director, and Monica Hung, interpreter and teacher, share the story.
In March 2020, our center embarked in a new direction with “What Is Buddhism,” a class offered in Mandarin with staff member Monica Hung. The class met an hour each week until the COVID-19 epidemic forced closure of the center. Soon after, the class regrouped and moved to an online format via Zoom.
Most of the students in the class are originally from China and grew up with no experience of Tibetan Buddhism. Their understanding of Buddhism in general is a cultural one, mostly of temples and a tradition of making offerings without any practice or doctrinal aspects.
The “What Is Buddhism” class was born out of a Chinese New Year event sponsored by our center in 2020. We celebrated Chinese New Year with an Open House at the center with some traditional sweets and a chance for visitors to offer incense. Visitors could also sponsor special light offerings for family, friends, and loved ones who had passed away. Besides fostering a more cordial connection with the neighborhood, individual conversations lead to some questions about Tibetan Buddhism. Those conversations sparked the idea for this class.
Monica shared that she presents a broad overview of Tibetan culture and history. This helps students understand the background of Tibetan Buddhism. She also provides a basic introduction to Buddhist terminology. The class is conducted in a discussion-like style. The casual environment encourages students to feel free to ask any kind of question about Tibetan Buddhism. Some examples are “As a Buddhist do I need to become a vegetarian?” and “Can lamas marry?”
Each class opens with the group reading the Heart Sutra together and then doing about three minutes of meditation on the breath.
One of the students recently asked about the meaning of the Heart Sutra. This became an opportunity for Monica to play His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s teaching on the Heart Sutra, which originally aired online in January 2021. The class watched the video together. Monica paused it periodically to explain some of the more advanced terminology for them. This has become part of the regular class with Monica and the students watching His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s online teaching, discussing, and slowly moving through the complete teaching over several classes.
Monica plans to begin introducing the students to the lamrim teachings in the spring of 2021. Our center is looking at ways to publicize the class locally, hoping to make the class more widely available to our Chinese-speaking neighbors.
To learn more about Tse Chen Ling, visit their website:
https://www.tsechenling.org/
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