The difficulties I was trying to overcome, initially, was depression. At that time I was going through a divorce. My mom has bipolar depression and my little sister is handicapped and she was trying to fight us all the time and I take care of both of them. My son is a kind and understanding person but even he was being affected by all that was going on and he was getting lower grades in school. His teachers praised his good manners they just wished he applied himself more to his studies. I was having great difficulties with getting my thoughts and emotional reactions under control. I would cry when I was alone in my car. I didn't like being short tempered and sometimes I was not sleeping (insomnia) or sleeping too much, taking too many naps and feeling fatigue. I had a knee injury and and low back pain. I was overall unhappy with my life.
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I started Chan meditation in 2016. I was walking in the park with my son and saw someone was putting a sign, ‘Chan Meditation in the Park’. I asked how much she would charge for the class. She said “it’s free.”. That’s how everything started!

At first, when I began sitting in full lotus and meditating on Amituofo, I felt the healing in my body. My knee healed up quickly and my lower back didn't hurt as much. A few months later I was sitting for an hour, daily, and I was feeling well rested. Soon my insomnia was gone and I was getting a full night’s sleep. I also didn't need as much sleep to feel well rested. Little by little I began to notice my thoughts were more focused and I wasn't angry or depressed, I was able to think clearly. I no longer react quickly in response to other people’s actions. I'm more patient and tolerant of everyone including myself. My little sister is calmer around me and is easily made peaceful. She doesn't try to fight with me anymore. My mom's bipolar depression isn't as bad as it used to be and she's more open to taking advice from me about her own health. Even my son’s grades in school have improved. I'm more supportive of him and he started meditating too.

My spirituality comes from Native American Traditions. It's not a religion but a way of life. It's very inclusive and tolerant of other people’s faith. I relate many of the spiritual leaders from the past as Holy men and women who were born to teach us something and it is up to us to pick up those teachings and utilize them or not. I choose to utilize Chan as part of my self-care and actually helps me improve the way I take care of others.
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Chan mediation helped me improve on so many levels but if I were to choose one thing that it helped me the most with, it would be, with my mind, and the ability to organize my thoughts. I no longer feel so scattered about my choices and decisions. I enrolled in college and got accepted into the Honors Program. I no longer worry about living up to other people’s expectations of me. I see clearly where I've wasted so much time on worrying about things that will most likely never happen. And I'm enjoying life's precious moments on a deeper level than before.

​Written by Venerable XianAn, Wei Mountain Temple

​I remember when I first started seeing Juan at Lu Mountain Temple about 2 years ago. Back then I was so busy, I wasn’t able to talk with him much, but I remember that he always worked around the temple even during lunchtime while everyone else was enjoying the food. One day I asked him, “Why don’t you come and join the lunch with everyone?” He said, “I don’t want to spend my blessings. I want to work and help the temple.”

​Unlike me, Juan always worked hard at the temple and then quietly went back home. He did that regularly, maybe once or twice a week. He politely refused to have lunch and continued to work.

​Today I saw him sitting in full lotus during Master YongHua’s sutra lecture. He didn’t move or make any sound for the entire 2 hours, and his face looked peaceful. I wanted to find out how cultivation has changed his life, so I invited him to have a conversation.

​Juan was born in 1981 in Guadalajara, Mexico, and his family moved to the U.S. when he was only 8 years old. He is a vocational nurse, has been married for 11 years, and has no children. He grew up in a typical Mexican family going to Catholic church. Until he turned 17 years old, he went to church every weekend with his family.

​However, he had been very self-destructive in his 20’s. He wore his hair long like a rock musician, with large tattoos on his body, and he often drank alcohol and smoked. He spent his time hanging out with friends at music concerts. Like a lot of young adults in the U.S., he did various kinds of drugs too.

FROM ARAVIND.

My name is Aravind Natarajan (male, 41yr). I work as a data scientist at #Fitbit, which is a health and wellness tech company in San Francisco. I grew up in India, and came to the U.S. to pursue my doctorate in Physics, and then as a research scientist. I later got interested in data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, and came to the bay area.

I got interested in Buddhism because I found Buddhist prayers to be peaceful, and I liked the message of non-violence, and compassion towards all living beings. In 2014, I volunteered as an English teacher for a short time at a Buddhist monastery in Ladakh (Ladakh is in India, but very close to Tibet), organized by the #Avalokitesvara Trust, and it was my first experience in a Buddhist environment. I later went to Japan on a research trip, and got the chance to visit Kamakura including the Hase Kannon temple and the famous Amida Daibutsu statue. Closer to home, in Ukiah, we have the large and beautiful City of Ten Thousand Buddhas with peacocks and deer. I found that I liked the chanting at CTTB and joined in when I could. I also like to attend the Saturday morning service at the Berkeley monastery.

Billy Tiet is a regular volunteer at Lu Mountain Temple and Wei Mountain Temple. He started to come to the temple regularly since two years ago. He is a heavy smoker and he is his only own boss. Nobody can tell him what to do. He often fires his own boss at work and he is very proud of himself doing so. But because of his bad temper, his life has not been easy.

​Written by Ven. XianAn
When we visited Korea in early 2019, we met a monk, Seok-Du Sunim, at BongEunSa. BongEunSa is one of the biggest temples in Seoul city. After the retreat ended, I (at that time, Shana) visited BongEunSa again to help with English translation for their temple introduction catalogue.

Seok-Su Sunim called a laywoman who practices vigorously and introduced her to me. He and I encouraged her to learn how to sit in full lotus. After that, she contacted me through Messenger and began a daily practice of sitting in full lotus.
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She blamed herself for not being able to concentrate well when she meditated. She had been instructed to do Hua-tou by a Korean master but was having much difficulty. I explained to her that not being able to concentrate was normal because she didn’t have the proper foundation.

It was challenging because she was in so much pain. She had not broken through the pain barrier even when sitting for over an hour and a half in full lotus, but she wasn’t giving up. She kept practicing and followed the instructions. She endured and endured.

Last night she texted me that she had finally sat for 2 hours. She said, “The pain is too much. It’s unbearable, but in this extreme pain, for some reason my mind is more clear.” She practices at BongEunSa Seon Center, but their sitting duration is only 50 minutes. I encouraged her to continue to sit through their normal break time, which she was able to accomplish, with a lot of tears and sweat.

​She can feel her concentration has improved, and her mind is much more clear than before. I understand that this was not easy without our support in person. She is strong and determined to cultivate!