Reunion Dinner Dharma
(By Tsem Rinpoche and Pastor Jean Ai)
At the very beginning of 2017, I had the opportunity to give a talk in Wisdom Hall, Kechara Forest Retreat. It covered the topic of practising Dharma at our upcoming reunion dinners.
On the eve of Chinese New Year, it is a Chinese tradition for the extended family to gather for a reunion dinner. During this annual event, relatives who are not necessarily in frequent contact with one another throughout the year use this much-cherished opportunity to reconnect with everyone. And given the diaspora of the Chinese community around the world, this annual migration can be an elaborate affair. In China alone for example, there are legendary mile-long traffic jams as millions move out of the cities and back to their hometowns, to grab this once-a-year chance to be with their loved ones.
However, this annual event is not without its difficulties and for some, the thought of reunion dinner leaves them with anything but happy thoughts. In Malaysia, the common joke is that when you go for reunion dinners, your elders will ask (or rather, interrogate!) you on a standard series of topics. “When are you getting married?” “How come you’ve put on so much weight?” “When am I going to get my first grandchild?” “How come your cousin’s job pays more than yours?” Hence some people approach the dinner fraught with anxiety; others attend fearful of the questions they may be asked, or dreading the conflict they have to witness. After all, if you have not seen one another for the last 365 days, there is sometimes a very good reason for this…
I spoke about seven practical methods that people attending reunion dinner can use to make their dinners a more pleasant occasion. In summation, these are:
- Conflict requires two people: an instigator and someone who responds to the situation and escalates it (you). So you have to take responsibility for your reactions. If someone makes a comment that displeases you, how you react to it is your responsibility and your reaction can possibly worsen/escalate the situation, or result in a positive and happy outcome.
- Focus on the positives of those you are with. The more you meditate on this, the more difficult it becomes for you to find reasons to fight.
- Realise impermanence, as the people who you perceive to be difficult will not be around forever.
- Look at what they are complaining about. Are the things they complain and nag about big and significant things, or small and mundane things? Are they complaining about you being unkind or are they saying your wardrobe is not fashionable because you lost your job? What they complain about is a reflection of their mind and who they are, and what they find important. It is not a reflection of you.
- Generate compassion for them. People often say things to satisfy a part of themselves that they are unhappy or dissatisfied with. They also say things out of their insecurities and think that in highlighting others’ weaknesses and failings, they can avoid facing or drawing attention to their own.
- Generate joy for them, especially for those you are being compared against. It is okay if your relatives are doing better than you; be happy that someone in your family is doing something to make everyone proud, and take responsibility for your own choices. If you are happy with the decisions you have made, be happy with it regardless of the situation (i.e. when your decisions are being compared against other people’s).
- Are you where you want to be? Having made your choices, are you where you want to be and if you are not, are other people’s opinions important in bringing you there? On a mundane level, do their opinions pay your bills? On a spiritual level, do their opinions add to your spirituality? Do their opinions help to create a situation that risks your spiritual practice?
I also spoke about the links between these seven points and the Eight Verses of Mind Transformation, and asked everyone to consider using reunion dinners as an opportunity to self-reflect. For those with children, are they turning into the kind of people they themselves do not like to meet at reunion dinners? Will their own children one day regret having to meet them once a year for a reunion dinner? And what can they do to prevent this? How can they introduce Dharma to their own families?
Ultimately, it is Dharma practice that will lead to a more harmonious, less conflict-filled life and just because it is a reunion dinner, does not mean we suspend our spiritual practice for a few hours. These dinners are a once-a-year event which is important in our Chinese culture and as mature, cognisant adults, we can and should play our part to make it a happy occasion and use it as an opportunity to progress our spirituality.
So do let me know in the comments section below how your reunion dinners went, and I hope everyone has a Happy Chinese New Year 🙂
Eight Verses of Thought Transformation
With the thought of attaining Enlightenment
For the welfare of all beings,
Who are more precious than a wish–fulfilling jewel,
I will constantly practise holding them dear.Whenever I am with others,
I will practise seeing myself as the lowest of all,
And from the very depths of my heart
I will respectfully hold others as supreme.In all actions I will examine my mind
And the moment a disturbing attitude arises,
Endangering myself or others,
I will firmly confront and avert it.Whenever I meet a person of bad nature,
Overwhelmed by negative energy and intense suffering,
I will hold such a rare one dear
As if I’ve found a precious treasure.When others out of jealousy,
Mistreat me with abuse, slander and so on,
I will practise accepting defeat
And offering the victory to them.When someone I have benefited and in whom
I have placed great trust hurts me very badly,
I will practise seeing that person
As my supreme teacher.In short, I will offer directly and indirectly
Every benefit and happiness to all beings, my mothers.
I will practise in secret taking upon myself
All their harmful actions and sufferings.Without these practices being defiled
By the stains of the eight worldly concerns,
By perceiving all phenomena as illusory,
I will practise without grasping to release all beings
From the bondage of the disturbing unsubdued mind and karma.
For more interesting information:
- Eight verses to happiness and acceptance
- Intimate advice for us
- Books that are a must-read!
- The Farm of Your Mind
- Ingredients for a successful relationship
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Thanks Pastor Jean Ai, I really loved this talk and its a great teaching on the application of the 8 verses of Transformation. Infact, this was one of the earliest teachings I learnt when I first came to Kechara, and it was, and still is, the greatest tool and aide for us to rely on, whatever the circumstance. I thank Rinpoche for introducing this to us and for Pastor Jean Ai for also giving this teaching to us in a simple but informative and entertaining way.
Eight Verses of Thought Transformation by Geshe Langri Tangpa is so applicable to daily life, and is the basis for H. E. Tsem Rinpoche’s book, Compassion Conquers All, a must read for any dharma student.
All our suffering when interacting with people stems from our own mind or thoughts. What people want to say, they will say it anyway, so you can’t change that. But how you take it is something within our control.
Like the idiom, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”, technically that is idealistic but in reality it is most difficult to apply. We have the big “E” word in the way. If we have no ego, why would we ever be hurt by people’s words? It’s just words. How we interpret those words can cause us more suffering. We analyse and read between the lines, we interpret body language and tone of voice, we judge people’s intention, then we jump to a conclusion that could actually be far from what the speaker meant to say.
On the flip side, we need to be careful of what we say and how we say it, i.e. lest we create non-virtue of speech. Sounds like a zero sum game for a dharma practitioner doesn’t it? We have to take everybody’s crap with a smile and deliver kindness and consideration to everybody in return. But hey, somebody has to start somewhere right, otherwise everybody comes to blows and nobody wins.
When we are caught in difficult and delicate situations like a reunion dinner, it is important for us to remember not to have negative attitudes, projections or expectations regarding such situations. We shouldn’t be negative or be on the defensive. If we are mindful and let go of our negative projections and expectations, such as anticipating and preparing to defend ourselves, against criticisms and “attacks” from certain people, we will have a more peaceful and positive outcome.Our feathers will not be unruffled nor will we ruffle others’ feathers.
We need to train our minds to respond to negative remarks, insults or criticisms with compassion, recognizing that these difficult and challenging people who made these remarks or comments about us are either insecure people or people who refuse to recognize their own faults, magnify others’ faults while hiding their faults (which are the deep-seated root causes of their unhappiness), thus making themselves more miserable in the long run.
If we are being compared to others who are more successful, just learn to be happy for these other people who are more successful, and rejoice for them. We ought to not let the green eyed monster of jealousy rear its ugly head and create anger and resentment in us.
If we practice the dharma , we will accept the situation, recognising karma, and not retaliate and thereby causing the situation to escalate and cause us to collect more negative karma.
Furthermore, these are impermanent situations, and will fade away even in our memory and in the memory of others involved. Hence, we should not be fixated with it and make a big issue out of it. Therefore, we should make a mountain out of a molehill and mindlessly retaliate.
Yes , thank you P Jean Ai for this talk, which is a great reminder to us of how the practice of Dharma and the Eight Verses of Mind Transformation are important to help us be positive in our reaction to every experience and situation.
Thank you Pastor Jean Ai for sharing your talk and the article. Yes, we should apply dharma in our daily life no matter where we are, what situation we are in, and who we are facing. Sometimes those questions that the relatives ask are a bit funny and some are ridiculous. But if we tackle it by applying dharma in it, it is easy and sometimes it will turn out funny outcome 🙂 Thank you again Pastor Jean Ai, it’s actually very helpful in overcoming and to solving many problems if we apply dharma in our daily life _/\_
Thank you Pastor Jean Ai for your Dharma talk. You spoke so well! I am sure this will be some talk for the public to read and benefitted from especially on topics like how to face questions thrown in by relatives. Actually for this year in particular I so not looking forward to all these reunion dinners and CNY feeling it is kind of wasting time. Don’t get me wrong, family get together is one tradition and it is always good to see them and see how they do but it is just that. The baggage that comes along with it will be the time “wasted” on idle chatting n travelling which doesn’t help us anyways. Thank you again for these tips and I think this is one way we put whatever we learn to practice.
A very interesting and relevant article. This is what a lot us us try to practice and avoid conflict, some successful and others less so. But, it is important to be able to remember the points and the Eight Verses of Mind Transformation is important but tend to slip our minds ever so often.
Thank you for this sharing. It will surely help a lot of us slide through this inquisition time of the year.
As rightly said, “Given the diaspora of the chinese community around the World, this annual mitigation can be an elaborate affair!” Grand and poshed reunion dinners, with giant fireworks will be organised to welcome this grand lunar year, for the rooster to replace the Monkey. We are at the moment in possession of a precious human body, the existence of which is immensely so difficult to find. In accordance to the teaching of Buddhism, as the saying goes, “Used well, this body is a ship to Liberation, otherwise, it is an anchor in Samsara. This body is the agent of all good and evil”. In one oral teaching of the above subject from Lama Zopa that I have heard, it is said that, “The Mahayana transformation eliminating obstacles – means taking inauspicious signs as good fortune……. But in general, ordinary people, or non-practitioners, think that an inauspicious sign is always a “bad omen”. So they tend to become worried, upset or what generally called “become worried-sick”! Many who are practitioners or who follows a “Guru” may have been taught “thought-transformation” and make use of any such inauspicious sign, or bad omen that happen in life, as a means to destroy their ego/or their self-cherishing thought in themselves, so as to be able to develop bodichitta in order to achieve “enlightenment” to be able to enlighten other fellow sentient beings, like our Pastor Elena Khong did in her beautiful teaching. Many thanks Pastor Elena for the sharing!
The 8 Verses Of Mind Transformation is a concise yet powerful way to develop a new life strategy of compassion and gaining wisdom that all our suffering stems from the perceived notion that me, I and myself is at the centre of our universe.
Thank you Pastor Jean Ai for sharing this wonderful talk. I guess we just have too much ego and when any of our relatives or friends said something annoying or hurtful, we will always react on it negatively.
I think importantly is to stay calm and don’t let any of their remarks affect us. Just reply them kindly and not think about it anymore as there is no point dwelling into it. I know it is easier said than done and well I am still learning 🙂
Thank you Pastor Jean Ai for the useful tips. The most important is from us. If we do not react to the comment from the family members then we would feel irritated and get angry from it. If we are happy with what and how we are, and if we reply the family members nicely then they will react in a different way.
With folded palms,
Vivian
Very informative article …i do enjoyed reading and watching the video.Reunion dinner is more a gathering for me celebrating with family members asking about each other how’s everything ….from asking about children and daily life. Sharing about each other views about this and that with lots of laughter. After all reunion dinner is a once-a-year event which is important in our Chinese culture. As for me …yesterday i shared with my family about KSK and KFR too,hoping they could visit KFR one day.
Thank you Pastor Elena Khong Jean Ai for sharing this Dharma talk and of Eight Verses of Mind Transformation too.Easy and simple to understand.
Happy Chinese New Year to Rinpoche and everyone at Kechara.Wish everyone have a good year ahead and good health
Thank you for really fun and entertaining talk,Pastor Jean Ai. I really enjoyed listening to your talk today and had a good laugh. Luckily I don’t have to go and attend any reunion dinner anywhere.Only daily routine dinner with my small family and uncle. And dont have to go through those questions like, do you have bf yet? when are you getting married? when are you going to have babies? how much is your boss paying you now? what position are you doing now? Lol!!! Thank you for sharing a wonderful talk for CNY. Happy Chinese New Year to Rinpoche and everyone in Kechara! 🙂
A really enjoyable and informative Dharma talk by Pastor Jean Ai, who presented the Eight Verses of Mind Transformation in a practical manner and made it easy to understand for us with many examples. We can certainly use any or all of her methods not only during Chinese New Year Reunion Dinner but also on a day-to-day basis, where we meet with people of all sorts. Thank you Pastor Jean Ai.