Wednesday

Wednesdays are my long days. In this case that is a good thing. As with most mornings, I am up and headed out to work around 5:00 a.m. and start work by 5:30. I don't start so early because of my dedication, but because that allows me to leave work at 2:00. Having this much flexibility in my work schedule is one good benefit of my job. The activity that makes Wednesday my long day is the evening sutra study class at Buddha Mind Monastery. Sutras are Buddhist scripture, so you could call sutra study class the Buddhist version of bible study class. That one comparison may be some what correct, but there is little else that is similar. The first hour of the class is a formal Zen meditation session. The sitting portion of the meditation will last for about forty minutes, which can be tough if you haven't been practicing. It is recommended that students take the beginning and advanced meditation classes before attending the sutra study class. This not only gives you a foundation of basic Buddhist teachings helping you to understand the more advanced concepts, but also gives you a chance to work up to the longer meditation sessions. The second hour is a more traditional (for westerners) combination of lecture and question and answer. This term we are studying the "Sutra of Forty-two Chapters".

The history of this sutra is interesting. In 62 c.e. Emperor Ming of the Later Han Dynasty dreamed that a golden man flew into his palace. The emperor's advisor told him That the golden man was the sage Buddha. In 64 c.e. The emperor sent a delegation to India to seek the Buddhadharma. In 67 c.e. two Buddhist masters arrived in China. The emperor built the first Buddhist monastery in China for them. At the monastery they translated the Sutra of Forty-two Chapters, the first sutra to be translated into Chinese.