Conference 09 @ Orlando Day 3

Day 3

Today is the third day of the conference, after a big good breakfast, we continued the group discussions from yesterday. In our group we continued on yesterday’s topic, Bodhisattva and volunteer. Everyone talked about several examples of “Give hope to others, give joy to others, give confidence to others, and making things convenience for others.” Even the camp leader, Sharon, shared with the group her opinions; she says we can give joy and confidence to others in our daily life, even it’s just a simple “Good job” or “Thank you” will do the magic. Venerable Chueh Lin also shared with the group an example of a volunteer who is unwilling to participate, and asked the participants to brainstorm on ways to approach that unwilling volunteer, and bring him or she to the volunteering path of Bodhisattva.

The meditation led by Venerable Man Guang is a refreshing and relaxing experience of the mind and body. We started with doing simple exercises. Then we crossed our legs, trying so hard to do the lotus position, closed our eyes, and meditated. After the sitting meditation we also did the walking meditation, which was a really great experience for all of us.

The Night of Buddha's Light

This is an activity in which you can totally see how much Orlando Staff put into this event and want to make everyone's experience worthwhile. Although it's a lot of trouble, Orlando Staff set up the stage outside on the court yard with all the equipment outside in the risk of getting wet in the rain.

All the performances were awesome. There were not just YAD's performances, Orlando Yad also invited a Traditional Japanese Drum group to play for us. Our YAD performance was very good; all the hard work and practice finally paid off. But the best part comes after lights out for the Candle ceremony and night chanting. After everyone put their candles down on the ground to form a lighted BLIA YAD, Orlando staffs showed the best fireworks show ever. When all the beautiful and colorful fireworks bloom in the sky like a thousand flowers and stars, a very nice and relaxing song was played. The fireworks showed the hard effort the Orlando staffs put into this conference, and the beautiful music represented the kind hearts of each and every Orlando staff. Everyone really enjoyed it.

Conference 09 @ Orlando

After the half day tour at downtown Disney in Orlando, our team got to the Guang Ming Temple for the conference registration. While we were waiting, we played several ice breaker games in the dinning hall. After we all paid our money and took our pictures (a normal one and a goofy one^o^), We had some time to set up our YAD posters. This year there are a total of thirteen subdivisions, Dallas, Fremont, Houston, LA (yeah), Miami, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Orlando, San Fransisco, St. Louis, South Bay, and Toronto . Ours and Fremont have the largest group of 18 members each.

After a little bit of meeting different people from different subdivisions and check out everyone's posters, we all went to the Main Shrine, where tables are set up and foods are smelling amazingly good. What's even more amazing was the night shows and performances. Orlando invites many talented people to do a great diversity of shows, such as the Flamingo dance, Pi-pa (an instrument) playing by Jianp Yang(楊劍萍 who performed for US president in the white house before (btw, that was an awesome performance, everyone was asking for an Encore song after she finishes her first cheerful song, so she did a second one, which was a powerful yet sad song that talks about 項羽), singing (performed by an Orlando girl named Sarah Wu), 扯鈴(performed by Casper from Miami, in the dark because his 扯鈴 has colorful LEDs), 川劇變臉, and 呼拉圈表演。

In between the performances there were also funny games designed by Orlando, and a skit about the history of Orlando. It was very educational and extremely FUNNY! After dinner, each subdivision takes turns to sign up for tomorrow's discussion groups. Everyone exchanges ideas about which discussion he/she wants to go excitedly. Then we take the shuttle bus back to the hotel and practiced our skit and cheer. We will rock tomorrow for sure!

Good Night everyone at LA. We miss you all :)