This is the second time where KMB Ashokavardhana’s family held Pekan Penghayatan Dhamma. Pekan Penghayatan Dhamma or simply called as PPD is an activity to break from our daily activities for some times in order to learn Dharma more deeply and its practices. This year, we get chances to hold it in Vihara Vajrabodhi – Bogor which is very comfortable and support us to do PPD.

And this year PPD’s theme is “Happiness is here and now”, this theme remind us that we often forget to be happy and we defined ‘happiness’ itself very far and hard to get. Yes, that is our problem. Therefore, Pekan Penghayatan Dhamma 2016 will help us to answer it. 

On 4th March evening, we depart from Student Housing to Bogor, both participants and committees enjoy the journey and very enthusiast. When we arrived, committee leads us to our room and all participants and committees get rest because it is already 10 pm at that time. 

The next day, we wake up at 5 am then we do worship. This is the first day that we have to do ‘Atthasila’ which mean we run ‘8 sila’ in Buddhist’ learning such as, we avoid to kill all living creatures, see things that entertaining . Yaps, that’s not an easy things, right? Then we have session with Suhu ‘Badraloka’, This session talk about ‘Mahayana Tradition’, she explain a lot about its history. But one important value is, she share to us ‘Dhamma is One’ so whatever tradition in Buddhist we practices, all of it is good and nothing bad.  And the main essence of all kind of tradition is same .  After that, we get another session with Mr. Wibi, now he works as PR in Badan Koordinasi Pendidikan Buddhis. The session is very interesting because he share much about his experience as a Buddhist. It is really make us more understand especially in Dhamma. 

Third day of PPD, we get session with Suhu Chuan Xiu.  He comes from Jakarta only to give us session, that’s an honor for us. In this chance, he teaches us to worship in Mahayana Tradition correctly. Besides that, we also do Dhamma Discussion with him. Then, we do ‘Repentance Worship’ lead by Suhu Xian Xing. This is our first time and it becomes valuable experience for us as young Buddhist. 

Fourth day session , we start by having ‘Meditation Learning’ with Suhu Neng Xiu Usually, many of us have difficulties when do mediation because we do not know how to do it properly. By, this session, Suhu Neng Xiu introduces us to the basic of meditation so it will help us in future both in theoretical and practical. Other teaching is, we become more understand about the real sensation of meditation about happiness and peacefulness. After that we have another special session, committees and participants will make bird replica with colorful origami. Because of our corporation, we succeed to make around 500 pieces bird origami then we hang it up in front of Buddha altar.

Time flies so fast, we already in the last day of PPD. We do ‘Pelimpahan Jasa’ in Mahayana Tradition for our family and all of creatures lead by Suhu Xian Xing in the morning. That will be our last session of PPD 2016.

There is a lot of learning and teaching that we get from this Pekan Penghayatan Dhamma 2016. Hopefully with this activity, we can improve our Dhamma practical in daily life. Last but not least, we want to thank you for all Suhu, Vihara Vajrabodi-Bogor, participant, committee and other parties which give their contribution to the success of Pekan Penghayatan Dhamma 2016. Well done Pekan Penghayatan Dhamma 2016 and See you in Pekan Penghayatan Dhamma 2017 !!!