What is Temple Stay?
- What is Temple Stay?
What is Busshin Temple Stay?
A Templestay at Fugonji Temple is unlike your average lodgings.
There is no hotel-like service or leisure time, but you will face and transcend your own weak mind while engaging in activities together with dedicated peers. Through this programme, Fukugonji becomes your training centre for the cultivation of compassion and wisdom.
The programme of the Busshin Temple Stay is based on the Sangha style of practice advocated by the Buddha, incorporating the 24 Elements of a Good Life, as outlined by our head monk Taigu.
- 24 Elements of a Good Life
- Clothing, food, shelter, movement, recreation, learning, parents, healing, wealth, Buddha, Dharma, monks
Precepts, Laws, Compassion, Pureness, Wisdom, Determination, Sexuality, Volition, Courage, Aging, Sickness and Death./dd>
It includes everything to cultivate compassion, wisdom and Buddhahood, and together with the practitioners who live at Fugonji, we will take daily initiatives with honesty, humility and sincerity.
We are in the process of arranging a healing temple stay (therapeutic temple stay) designed for mental and physical recuperation. Once preparation is complete, members of the Buddhist Heart Association will be given priority notice.
Experience Prosperity
Within the Ordinary with
Zen Disciples
At the Fukugonji Temple Stay, we begin the day by rising early in the morning, expressing gratitude to Buddha through recitation of sutras. During the day, we use our bodies and minds to the fullest to do our daily tasks, and eat appropriate amounts of food. In the evening, we reflect on ourselves through exchanges with our conscientious peers, and finally fall asleep with our bodies and minds in a state of harmony.
The valuable things in life are found within the repetition of each day. Focusing full attention to the fleeting "moments" in daily life leads to the deepening, growth and joy of human beings.
As you accumulate excellent habits at Busshin Temple Stay, a transformation will take place inside of you. Once this transformation has taken place, it will then expand to those around you.
Why the Temple Stay is
6 days and 5 nights
We have judged that with one night or two nights, it would be difficult for people to experience the ultimate temple life, as they would end up spending a hectic time in the temple, bewildered by the unfamiliar manners and environment.
By making the duration of the Temple Stay six days and five nights, we understand it will be more difficult for those who work in companies to participate. However, after many meetings of deliberation, we concluded that we would like to give priority to those who still make the time to participate in the Temple Stay.
Eventually, we hope to be able to hold these experiences for shorter periods of time, but for the time being, we will only be holding them for six days and five nights.
A Message from Osho Taigu
-
Many people have the misconception that the cause of poor health is "heredity" or "bad luck." I cannot stress enough that it is overwhelmingly the influence of one's "lifestyle" that is responsible for poor health.
"Habits of the mind" are overwhelmingly responsible for the poor mental health of many people today. By "habits of the mind" we mean the habits of "what stimuli and information we take in, what thoughts and feelings we have and how we subdue or express them."
Many of the problems with the body, mind and relationships did not just arise one day, without any cause, but developed as a result of the accumulation of habits over many years. -
Living is a sequence of having thoughts inside the mind, speaking the thoughts out loud and carrying out actions with the body.
In Buddhism, these three acts are called The Three Karma of body, mouth and will.
Constructing a lifestyle to eliminate bad habits and acquire good habits for life, is itself a Zen practice. However, people are not so willful or clever. Unfortunately, there is no way to reform one's life by continuing with one's current lifestyle.
You want to do away with bad habits and develop good habits. You want to transform your way of life. If this is your sincere wish, we invite you to Busshin Temple Stay.