Listening to the Dharma in North Carolina

Zhaxi Zhuoma visited the Heartwood Refuge & Retreat Center in Hendersonville, North Carolina from May 18 through May 30. The group above represents the students from the current Kammanna Institute class and the local sangha who came to hear how the Four Immeasurable Minds or Brahma-viharas (that can cause you to be reborn in the heavens or Brahmaloka) can enable you to achieve bodhichitta in the highest sense and ultimate enlightenment and liberation. Most of those in these two groups had been studying H.H. Dorje Chang Buddha III’s The Dharma of Cultivation and were ready to hear that section from The Sutra on Definitive Truth.

The first morning there was spent with the Kammanna Institute students reading and discussing Learning from Buddha, H.H. Dorje Chang Buddha III’s three discourses on cultivating the mind and cultivating your character. Zhaxi Zhuoma had Benxin Chiren (Jason) Rinpoche meet with the previous class and translate from the actual discourses for the previous class in April of 2017. She had also conducted a Kuan Yin Great Compassion Empowerment Ceremony at Heartwood at that time. This time Zhaxi Zhuoma also introduced these eager students to The Supreme and Unsurpassable Mahamudra of Liberation, reading the introduction that explained that anyone can practice this great dharma from Bodhisattvas to ordinary Buddhist to non-Buddhists and provided some context for how the practice worked.

Since the Heart Sutra and Homage to H.H. Dorje Chang Buddha III as well as Shakyamuni Buddha were chanted before all these classes were held, it gave her an opportunity to provide background on these chants as well. Explaining that the Heart Sutra is a sort of “short hand” for all the teachings of the Buddha, provided an introduction to why studying the Heart Sutra word by word as they were now doing with the Buddha Master’s sutra, Expounding the Absolute Truth through the Heart Sutra, is so important. [NOTE: We now know that this marvelous text should be known as a sutra and not just a commentary as it is the Buddha’s actual Buddha-dharma on how we can realize prajna and thus become enlightened. They were all invited to join the study groups in Sanger this summer and fall. Everyone knew what the “Four Noble Truths” were, but not everyone understood that was the meaning of the line from the Heart Sutra that reads “…No suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path…”

Every word in the Heart Sutra is like that. Understanding the Heart Sutra, you understand what the Buddha taught.

Heartwood is led by two Theravada monastics, Venerable Pannavati and Venerable Pannadipa, and is home to four interdependent organizations: 1-the center itself, which offers different types of retreats led by different spiritual leaders, self-directed retreats, an intentional community, and a Healing Continuum Wellness Center; 2-The Kammanna Institute, which provides dharma leadership education via an online distance-learning and quarterly on-site practice retreats; 3-The Embracing Simplicity Hermitage that offers dharma classes, qigong group practice, music, and Refuge Recovery for the local community and visitors; and 4-The Treasure Human Life Foundation that has focused on social action over a range of programs from assisting local homeless teenagers learn job skills (they started a bakery), to aiding the Dalits (untouchables) in Tamil Nadu, India and helping ordain bhikkhunis (female nuns) in Thailand (where it is still illegal for a woman to become a nun). Venerable Pannavati also tours the US, lecturing and helping other sanghas develop service programs. With the availability again of dharma discourses in English, Pannavati has reestablished the Xuanfa South Dharma Center and a Vajra Hall to introduce her mainly Theravada students to the Vajrayana and the teachings of H.H. Dorje Chang Buddha III.

Zhaxi Zhuoma decided to take a few days vacation, stay on and enjoy the long weekend, and share more of The Supreme and Unsurpassable Mahamudra of Liberation with the residents and community, just sit in the old porch swing on the veranda, and enjoy the wonderful Southern hospitality as well as the benefits of the Wellness Center. She was even able to catch a rehearsal of the Heartwood Troubadours as they prepared for their next road trip. She even managed to arrange a Refuge and Blessings Ceremony of the community pets.