Chan Meditation 4 Europe(Zoom)
Every Thursday and Sunday
Chan Meditation for Europe
- These classes are free and open to everyone.
- Taught in English with a live interpreter (Spanish, Portuguese, German, French)
Venerable XianAn (known as HyunAn Sunim in Korea) will lead weekly Chan(or Seon) Meditation class via Zoom. These classes are open to everyone regardless of religion, age or cultural background. All classes will be in English with a live translator in your local language.
There are many kinds of meditation methods out there but the real origin really goes back to its roots in Buddhism. Therefore, people in Asian cultures have always been more exposed to better knowledge on how to practice it. Although meditation has become more mainstream in the west, the practitioners can’t always find better solutions to resolve their problems or obstructions in their practices. Additionally, our world is becoming more stressful and unbearable, people have greater needs to look for more effective or better ways of practicing meditation.
Program details
- Basic instructions: postures, various methods of meditation, etc.
- Silent meditation (or sit)
- Dharma talk and Q&A
Why free?
Our Chan students have experienced great benefits for themselves and saw the transformation of their lives from this practice. So now they wish to share this wonderful experience with others. Therefore, many offered to help organize those classes and support our sangha members (Buddhist monks and nuns) to teach the classes. Now, they wish that more people can encounter this wonderful practice in Europe and improve their lives.
What to expect?
You will receive simple and direct instructions from the instructor so that you can try the practice together. During these classes, you can freely ask questions and discuss difficulties from your daily practice. Then the instructor will be able to provide answers and solutions that are more specific for you.
Why Chan meditation?
We often associate meditation with relaxation or feeling good. Meditation can be a lot more than that. If you don’t seek the comforts or peace from your practice, you will improve much further and experience much greater results. That’s why it’s important for you to understand that you can always improve more in your spiritual practice. Only hard work and consistent effort will produce genuine results in meditation training. What does it mean?
Chan meditation is a very effective form of your spiritual practice if you want something more than an easy fix. When you make progress in meditation, you will be much healthier, faster, calmer and more productive. Not only that, you will be more creative and efficient. You will discover yourself with better relationships with others and solve problems much wiser. There are so many more benefits that you can gain which cannot even be all described.
What is Chan 禪 Meditation
Chan("Seon" in Korean or "Zen" in Japanese ) is one of the most powerful forms of meditation. Chan teaches participants how to increase concentration power, also known as samadhi power. In this training, the results are solid and concrete. By increasing samadhi, the mind naturally becomes much more relaxed and peaceful and the body becomes much healthier.
Chan is an ancient meditation that is a central practice of Mahayana, which was transmitted to China from India, where it took root and subsequently spread throughout East Asia. Mahayana is often contrasted with the Hinayana branch of Southern Asia, and the Vajrayana branch from Tibet.
Our practice originates from the Orthodox Lineage that Great Master HsuanHua brought to the United States from China in the 1960s. The Great Master's meditation teachings are among the most profound of Mahayana, and are rooted in a more than 2000 year old tradition. As a patriarch of one of the main lineages of Buddhism called WeiYang, the Great Master knew mediation well. Chan utilizes many secret methods, most of which cannot be found in print, especially in the West. These techniques have been handed down from Master to disciples in an oral tradition that has existed for more than 2,500 years, since the time of Shakyamuni Buddha, the founder of Buddhism.
These Mahayana meditation techniques are the same ones that the Japanese learned when they came to China hundreds of years ago, and which formed the basis for Japanese Zen. In fact, 'Zen' is just the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word 'Chan'. In the 20th century, Zen was exposed to the West. Today, Zen is still more prevalent and well known in the US than Chan.
The BLI instructors
These classes are taught by Buddhist monks and nuns from Bodhi Light International (BLI). BLI is a non-profit religious organization dedicated to benefitting all living beings through the teachings of Mahayana Buddhism. The founder of BLI, Chan Master YongHua is an American Buddhist monk currently residing in California. He has been training over 20 monastic disciples with different nationalities and ages. And he also has a great number of lay people followers from all over the world. Although his disciples have very diverse backgrounds, they share a common passion for cultivation, hoping to realize their fullest potential by devoting their lives to the service of others.
BLI’s instructors are trained to provide individualized guidance so that each person can find the most appropriate methods for their current situation or level through these classes. BLI’s instructors have been trained to teach the new generation or the Westerners unlike the traditional or older Buddhist style.
Master YongHua
Master YongHua was born in South Vietnam and came to the United States in 1973. After working in the corporate world for decades, he decided to leave home life to study Chan under Great Master HsuanHua in 1995. He then went to Taiwan to study Chinese and the Vinaya (the Buddhist rules of morality) for 2 years. He returned to the United States in 2001 and practiced in seclusion until 2005, at which time he began teaching Chan and accepting disciples. In 2018, he established Wei Mountain Temple in Southern California and then in the following years, the operation has expanded to new temples in San Jose and San Francisco.
He also has strong affinities with Korean cultivators. Since his first visit to Korea in 2018, some of his Korean followers have offered him a temple in Korea. Now, he established another way place in the metro area of Seoul so that he and his sangha can better help the younger generation and working professionals. In recent years, many people became monks and nuns under him and his sangha monastic community is rapidly growing in both the US and Korea.
Venerable XianAn
(known as “HyunAn Sunim” in Korea)
Venerable XianAn is a Korean American Buddhist nun who’s a long disciple of Master YongHua. She started learning Chan from Master YongHua at Lu Mountain Temple in 2012 in the US. At that time, she was a young entrepreneur with a start-up business. And Chan quickly became her core strength to make her business very successful. With her further improvement in Chan, she realized that Chan is such a wonderful and fundamental skill not only for her career but also all other aspects of her life. In 2019, she became a Buddhist nun under Master YongHua and returned to her motherland, Korea. Since then, she’s been teaching American Chan in Korea and became very well-known. She is also a published author and Buddhist radio DJ.
HyunAn Sunim(or XA) has endlessly worked to share her Master’s teaching with her people in her home land. And she also taught countless meditation sessions in many of Korea’s renowned temples. And some of her meditation students decided to leave home-life under her master and joined the sangha community in Korea.
Affinities with Europe
In 2013, some Portuguese came to Lu Mountain Temple, which is Master YongHua’s very first temple in the USA and participated in the ChanQi intensive meditation retreat. At that time, HyunAn sunim was a lay person and was one of just a few people practicing together at this temple so they quickly became Dharma friends. Since then, more Portuguese cultivators have come to the US to practice together every year. At the same time, they felt that the Chan practice was so beneficial for themselves and their loved ones, they decided to organize weekly meditation sessions in Lisbon. Later on, Portuguese cultivators decided to invite Master YongHua to teach their people so they organized their first 3-day Chan retreat in 2017. At that time, XianAn Sunim as a lay person traveled to Europe with Master YongHua and assisted with his classes.
Class summary
Date/Time
How to access
(No registration is required)
Zoom ID: 801 253 0926
Passcode: meeting
