November, 2009

Sundays are special at the HÜMÜH Monastery, when the neighboring community is invited to come for the Sunday Service and to enjoy a walk around the gardens, now softly aglow in November’s delicately etched beauty. They are also invited to make advance reservations and share the noon meal with the monks and retreatants.

The 10:45 a.m. Service is held in the Forest Temple of Enlightenment to the right of Padma Valley, where guests of all religions join HÜMÜH students to listen to the Teachings. Visitors remove their shoes before entering the Temple, stepping into the pristine silence to sit on the meditation cushions or on the available comfortable chairs.

Guests are welcome to stay for lunch after the service, but are requested to call and make reservations prior to coming. The noon meal is served in Skycliffe’s elegant dining room that looks out over the orchard and the Golden Healing Stupa in the center of the Mandala Garden. World-class vegetarian meals are served “family-style,” and are lovingly prepared with organic fruits and vegetables in season.

A unique feature of the lunchtime gathering is the opportunity for guests to discuss the Teaching given that morning in the Temple and to share any aspects of what was heard that “stood out” for them personally.

The subject of a recent, highly impactful Teaching entitled Safeguarding Your Next Life, was about the purifying power of regret. Wisdom Master Maticintin explained that as we develop spiritually and come to realize that we have been living incorrectly, particularly as we approach the moment of death, we can make a sincere declaration that, if we had to do something over in our lives, we would never make that same mistake again. The Wisdom Master went on to say that this declaration must be said with great fervor and deep-felt regret—“something you can feel from your head to your toes!” To be truly effective, the declaration cannot be tainted with anything (i. e. doubt, blame, fear)---it has to indicate that one is taking total responsibility for past mistakes and feeling total remorse at the same time.

This conscious and clear act of regret sets in motion a spiritual stance that goes with us into our next moment, to live the life we want in this lifetime as well as in our next lifetime. If we have regret, we will make different choices and, thereby, become a stronger version of our former selves. The Wisdom Master continued by saying that this spiritual refinement then builds into other strengths. We become truer in all aspects of our lives, and that is how virtue is developed and how we take it with us from lifetime to lifetime. This is the way spiritual evolution takes place within us.