Summer Program> Woodenfish HBMLP 2024

Dear Colleagues,

It is with great pleasure that we announce the 2024 Woodenfish Humanistic Buddhist Monastic Life Program (HBMLP), Woljeongsa, South Korea, July 1st to 28th.

Please help us by sharing this information with your students and colleagues. 

The Woodenfish HBMLP provides international participants with a first-hand experience of the lifestyle, training, and rituals of contemporary Buddhist monastics. Moreover, it includes academic lectures and discussions in order to provide the participants with historical and doctrinal background for understanding the Buddhist experience.

The primary goals of the program include:

• Offering participants a chance to personally experience Buddhism as it is practiced in modern-day Asia.
• Providing courses on Buddhism and Asian culture taught by Buddhist monastics and lay scholars.
• Introducing participants to the concepts and practices of Humanistic Buddhism.
• Experiencing and reflecting on Buddhist monastic discipline and traditions.
• Exposing participants to Asian culture and language.
• Cultivation of the mind through meditation.

Key elements

• Training in Buddhist monastic customs and practices such as sitting meditation, ethics, and liturgy.
• Introductory courses in various aspects of Buddhism, such as history, philosophy, etiquette, rituals, Humanistic Buddhism, Korean Buddhism, etc.
• Cultural workshops with experienced artists. In previous years we have offered workshops in classical music, tea ceremony, kungfu, taiji, calligraphy, and other traditional arts.
• Communal activities and chances to interact with monastics and lay people in the monastery.
• Daily participation in essential routine activities within a Buddhist monastery.
• A five to seven-day silent meditation retreat.
• A cultural tour of the surrounding countryside and important historical sites. Cultural tour will be from July 26th-28th visiting Andong Confucian village and Seoul.
• All activities will be conducted in English.

Learn more and apply today: https://www.woodenfish.org 

On behalf of Venerable Yifa and the program organizers,

Guttorm Gundersen, PhD Candidate, Harvard University