The Joy of Reunion At The Spiritual Home

At dawn on Saturday October 21, 2017, more than 50 disciples from the three DDM centers from Northern California: Milpitas, San Francisco, and San Jose were excited to begin a 400 mile journey to the South to visit the Spiritual Home of the DDM to celebrate the 171th Birthday of our Grand Master Dasira Narada. This reunion might be considered as one of the most historical events of the Divine Dharma Meditation Organization. We gathered together to celebrate our Grand Master Dasira Narada 171th Birthday at the new DDM Headquarters. The center that Thầy Nguyễn Đức Thuận and Cô Nguyễn Ngọc Hải have built so everyone can come and enjoy the DDM reunion events.

There were disciples with different levels; but level 2 members were the happiest and excited group because this was the first time they had a chance to meet our Masters, Thầy Nguyễn Đức Thuận và Cô Nguyễn Ngọc Hải. On the bus, we had group activities such as solving the riddles, telling funny stories so we would forget a long road ahead. When we arrived at the hotel, we met the new graduates from level 4 class. We were hugging and laughing in great harmony and true happiness.

On Sunday morning, October 22, when we came down to the hotel lobby, we were surprised to see a room filled with beautiful and colorful “áo dài” from the ladies. Each lady wore a formal “áo dài” with a unique design, but all of them had a common look on their faces, the excitement that they would soon be reunited with disciples from around the world at the new DDM Spiritual Home. The bus departed from the Brookhurst Plaza Inn to pick up 16 members from DoubleTree Hotel. We arrived at the Headquarters at 9 o’clock.

It is such a great pleasure to see a beautiful meditation center in a tranquility environment shadowing by two rows of palm trees, and the most prominent statue of our Grand Master Dasira Narada placed on the front of the meditation center. On the right-hand side, there is another statue of the Second Grand Master Narada Mahathera. On the left-hand side, there is a big rock carving the name of the center Vi Dieu Phap Hanh Thien in the front and the logo of the DDM and The Truth Poem on the back.

The big front yard of the center was crowded with DDM members who came from around the world. We met the lovely ladies from the culinary team from Seattle. The profound unforgettable memory from the past had aroused in our mind. The scene is new, but the love and care of the culinary team have never been changed a bit. We still feel that they put full love and compassion in preparing food for us a few days before the event. Working shoulders to shoulders with the Seattle veteran culinary team are the new members of Orange County center. They have worked in full force for the past few days to serve almost 600 disciples. They stayed under the 920 F heat wave at noon to prepare BBQ for everyone. We deeply admired the sacrifice that they have for all brothers and sisters of the DDM Family. What a noble love that they have reserved for the DDM family members! The organizing team also put things together very thoughtfully and harmoniously. Certainly, the two teammates of the Orange County and Rosemead centers also work tirelessly to take care of the transportation, set up all other accommodations, and thousands of unnamed things during this big event.

The Grand Master 171th Birthday ceremony was started solemnly by Lighting up Incense and Offering Flowers to Grand Master inside the Headquarter. Master Nguyễn Đức Thuận and Master Nguyễn Ngọc Hải, Instructors, Center Leaders and Center Assistant Leaders gave sincerely prayer and brought fresh and beautiful flowers to the Grand Master Dasira Narada. Then everyone headed outdoor to join the rest of the group to begin the full celebration of the Grand Master BD and the Grand Opening of the Headquarters. Standing out beautifully next to Thầy Thuận was Cô Hải in the elegant traditional Vietnamese “Áo Dài”. The color green represented the based color of the DDM organization. She showed off a new traditional Vietnamese image of an elegant person whose look was completely different from the way she wears the formal Western suits in other past DDM events.

Dear Masters,

We have felt so grateful that the two of you have worked tirelessly during the past twenty years to build up the DDM organization. You have transformed from nothing to a lot of great things. And now you would like us to go from some great things back to nothing by just focusing on finding our true inner-selves on our cultivation journey. Thank you for your simple but profound dharma lessons during the event. In order to build up the DDM Spiritual Home for all of the disciples around the world to gather during reunion events or to attend the high-level classes, we have known that Thầy Cô must work really hard and put all of your efforts to conquer all obstacles with your fearless and calm attitude. Without Your enormous love and care for this generation and many more generations in the future, our spiritual home would never exist. By looking at your endless efforts in the past twenty years, we have known what we must do to preserve and to pass on the great heritage for many future generations.

A disciple from Northern California -USA

October 30, 2017