念佛 Buddha Recital

The education system in Singapore had benefited me by having the knowledge of a second language- spoken mandarin and written Chinese characters. Unlike English with 26 alphabets to make up words and forming sentences using words, Chinese characters are all unique although there are "section headings" (some call them radicals or bushou, 214 of them in total).

The beauty of Chinese characters is that it is visual and can give glues as to their meaning. For example:-

 

念



The top character by itself means now or present (今), the bottom is heart 心. When put together as above, it means present thoughts, sense or feeling. It is a thing of present and now which is achieved with our heart, with feeling. That is the beauty of Chinese characters.

When we say Buddha recital in Chinese, it is written as 念佛. So, why and how do we practice this?

The objective of Buddha recital is to practice the calming of our mind. It is like a making a rough sea into a calm lake because it is only with calm water that we can see clearly with insight. There are 2 ways to practice Buddha recital- (1) casual way, and (2) concentration way. The first way can be done at any time, any where, both vocally or silently. You could even practice this while talking to someone. As for the latter, it had to be done under certain circumstances and done continuously, audibly. Grand Master Yin Guang encouraged us to count the number of Buddha recital with focus and concentration.