Gratitude & Acknowledgement

In this episode of the Practitioner's Heart Podcast, host Poh emphasises the profound role of gratitude within Buddhist practice, highlighting the importance of acknowledging the teachings and compassion received from parents and Dharma teachers. Poh shares personal reflections on the impactful teachings from Venerable Master Shen-Kai and other spiritual guides from the Buddhahood Lineage. The episode urges listeners, especially therapists and healthcare workers, to integrate wisdom and compassion into their daily practices and cultivate a community dedicated to collective awakening and growth. Poh concludes with an invitation to listeners to engage with the podcast through sharing, feedback, and participation.

00:00 Introduction to The Practitioner's Heart

02:21 Episode Theme: Gratitude and Acknowledgement

03:06 The Four Types of Grace in Mahayana Tradition

03:39 Honouring Parents and Teachers

04:43 Venerable Master Shen-Kai and His Legacy

07:23 The Path to Awakening and Future Generations

08:41 Personal Journey and Inspirations

11:19 Mahayana Teachings and Daily Practice

14:37 Closing Thoughts and Gratitude

17:03 Final Words and Call to Action

Transcript

Hey, welcome to the practitioner's heart offering practical Buddhist wisdom for a sustainable practice for therapists and healthcare workers. If you are keen to learn more and deepen your practice beyond the theoretical understanding of Buddhism. If you are finding it hard to calm your little active mind after therapy work, I welcome you to join me to dive a little deeper.

Each episode I'll be sharing some common issues that therapists may face when integrating and practicing awareness, compassion within themselves, and also supporting clients. I'll be sprinkling some pearls of wisdom. That I've learned from my master and teachers that will be helpful as internal resources for the helpers in us.

I'll also be interviewing other therapists who are on these spiritual paths together to share their experiences of how they integrate and practice wisdom and compassion in their daily lives. I want to let you know that you're not alone. You are part of a bigger community who aspire for greater soul alignment, growth, purpose, and awakening, that we can strike a balance of juggling our busy modern life as therapists with a clear mind and an open heart.

I hope to inspire more practitioners to explore deeper spiritual meaning and purpose on our path to enlightenment and awakening. I am your host, Poh Gan, a psychologist, a Buddhist practitioner, a parent of two children, a fellow human being with a busy mind, but with a great inspired vision for collective awakening.

Let's begin.

Hi, dear friends. Welcome to the Practitioner's Heart Podcast. Today I want to offer something simple, tender, and deeply important to me. An episode of deep gratitude and acknowledgement. Gratitude is such a core part of Buddhist practice. It is not a polite gesture and not as a habit of "thank you" culture, but as a deep recognition and remembering where our wisdom knowledge comes from, and those who have walked the path before us lighting the way, guiding us to walk the way together. In the Mahayana tradition, we often say that we are held by the kindness of countless beings. There are four types of grace that we are grateful for: our parents, teachers, especially our Dharma teachers, our communities and our countries.

In this episode, I want to talk about the graces of parents and teachers, especially Dharma 

teachers. Although my parents have passed away for this lifetime, I'm grateful every day for the physical life that they have given me. I continue to remember the nurture, the love, the kindness and compassion that they have showered on me all these years as I grew up, as you know, that unconditional love becomes a secure base, a secure attachment base for me to explore the world.

I continue to dedicate merits and blessings to them wherever they are.

Our teachers, including my teachers in formal schooling, lecturers, supervisors, mentors, coaches imparted their knowledge and experience to shape me as a person, as a therapist. Most importantly, our Dharma teachers are people who have nurtured our wisdom life and help guide us to walk the path of awakening ourselves.

The lineage that I'm following is called Buddhahood Lineage, World Humanity Vehicle Buddhism. It is founded by Venerable Master Shen-Kai. Although I have never met him in a person, I feel a deep connection to his teachings and his great compassionate Bodhisattva vows. He was born in China in 1918 and passed away in 1996 in the United States of America, and during this time, he founded the World Humanity Vehicle Buddhism in the eighties in Taiwan.

He carried out his compassionate vows by tirelessly traveled internationally, answering requests for dharma talks, wrote over a hundred books on Buddhist practices and concepts, and he founded Jen Chen World Humanity Vehicle Buddhism Centers, missions, foundations, and publishing houses in many countries.

Venerable Master Shen-Kai described himself as a bird who saw the forest being burned by the scorching fire, and he could not bear to see all the animals in the forest losing their lives and homes that he did not fly off for the sake of his own life. Instead, he wet his wings up by deeping into the lakes and flew back to the fire to shake the water droplets into the fire.

Other animals were like, what? It will not work. It's better that you fly for your life. But he continued to do so. In doing so, his act of compassion touched other animals and heavenly kings that a heavy rain started to pour and put out the forest fire. He said he want to be that bird to continue working hard to support the humanity for their awakening, ready to build a pure land on earth for the next Buddha-to-be. Then,

many more Bodhisattva-to-be practitioners will be inspired to join in the concerted effort to create a bright and blissful world for all humanity. Many will resonate and follow this path to awakening of self and others.

As a side story, there is a prophecy by Sakyamuni Buddha that the next Buddha to be is Maitreya Bodhisattva. He will be born to this world just like Sakyamuni Buddha did, to guide beings to great awakening in 5.67 million years later. At that time, the world will be a pure land on earth. Yes, I know it is very far away from 2026, but as we know from human evolution science perspective, we can affect generation after generation through epigenetics, right?

The evolution of our human population will affect our future generation. How we show up for our children, colleagues, clients, families and friends can all be causal conditions for greater humanity to break the cycles. If we as a human population continue to practice returning to our awakened pure consciousness. I think this is very possible.

My direct Dharma teacher, Venerable Master Jayru, is the monastic disciple of Venerable Master Shanghai. I met her when I came to Australia to study psychology in 2004. I continue to seek her wisdom and guidance as I continue to practice and further my cultivation. I also follow the teachings of Reverend Ming-An Chen.

He's a disciple and the dharma heir of Venerable Master Shen-Kai. All the profound dharma were taught by my Dharma master and teachers in an easy-to-understand manner that leads directly to realizing one's innate Buddha nature and awakening. They are my greatest inspiration. So I wanted to honor and acknowledge all that I've shared on this podcast are combination of both sources of influences from Buddhahood lineage World Humanity Vehicle Buddhism, and secular scientific study of psychology, subject to my limited and humble interpretation of wisdom traditions, and teachings as an unenlightened lay practitioner, learning to follow the footsteps of my master and teachers.

I'm very much still on the path of practicing and learning, making countless mistakes, and I'm definitely not a master that stands on the mountaintop and giving you advice, but more as a fellow practitioner on the path, sharing experiences and what I know so far, so that you are inspired to practice whatever version that you see fits. It's all about workability, right?

Sakyamuni Buddha said, don't believe blindly for what I said, just take what resonates and practice. Experiment with it. Practice what works for you. If there are any questions, please feel free to email me or DM me on Instagram. If you have any suggestions or topics, please share them with me.

I would also welcome you to volunteer your time to come on board and share your experience as a practicing therapist and how you embody wisdom practice in your work and personal life. So today I want to honor the Mahayana teachings that guide my practice, the teachings on compassion, on Buddha Nature, Bodhicitta, the awakened mind that commits to guiding all beings towards enlightenment and liberation. These teachings are vast with depth, but they have always met me in the quiet, everyday place of my life, and the breath between the sessions and the stillness after a hard day, in the moments where my own heart felt tight and confused, tired. They have taught me that no matter how busy or imperfect my mental state is, there is a deeper stillness and luminous clarity beneath all the mental activities.

And that my teachers have inspired me, that these deeper stillness and luminous clarity can be realized, learning to unhook from these conditioned mind and ego. So I offer my deepest gratitude to my dharma teachers, to the masters and monastics carry these teachings through time, lifetime, after lifetime, who embodied them with humility, who show me that Buddhist practice is not just an intellectual understanding.

It is something that we live and embody and taking fearless actions every day for self awakening as well as for the benefits of all sentient beings. Gosh, I get a bit teary. I thank the teachers who taught me how to develop concentration and stillness when my mind was restless, the teachers were taught me how to soften when my heart felt defensive,

the teachers who taught me that compassion is not a technique. It is something that each one of us has to begin with and we can return to through consistent practice again and again. And I thank the Mahayana masters who described enlightenment, not as a personal liberation, but as an offering that benefits all beings. 

This vision has shaped how I show up as a psychologist, therapist, parent, and fellow human being, trying to emulate and walk this path. I thank my teachers for helping me recognize that the most profound transformation happens quietly, moment by moment when we continue to align ourselves to our innate pristine awareness, meeting ourselves with deeper clarity and kindness.

And finally, I thank you. The listeners of this podcast, you who are walking your own spiritual and therapeutic paths, your presence here gives me a space and reason to give back and share. It contributes to a collective aspiration, where [00:15:00] more practitioners are exploring inner freedom, spaciousness, and awakening in the midst of the very real emotional work that we do. As practitioners, we know that none of us walk alone, and it is so important to have peers in the professions to do supervision and consultation with. So yes, in the Mahayana tradition, gratitude. It is not just a feeling, it is a practice of bringing our connection to all who have guided us or who have walked beside us, our Dharma friends, our dharma teachers.

So part of the reason why I started this podcast is that I aspire to build a community of DAMA friends where we can learn together, practice together to awaken ourselves and others in our limited but precious human life. Let's make our journey on earth count. Today, I offer my deepest appreciation and gratitude to the teachings, to the teachers, to the lineage, to each of you, may we continue to cultivate wisdom and compassion, not just for ourselves, but for the benefits of all beings. Let's take one breath together.

In gratitude, in connection, and in the spirits of awakening. Thank you for being here. Let's continue this path with clear minds and open hearts.

As we close our practice for today, I want to thank you for sharing this time. If this episode resonated with you, the most meaningful way to support the podcast is to share it, share it with a colleague, or live a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify. It helps our community to reach other people who need it.

Until next time. Keep your heart open, keep your mind clear and steady. Go be your amazing self as you awaken yourself and others.

See you next time.

Just a gentle reminder that our conversation today is for inspiration and education only. It's not a substitute for therapy or clinical supervision and our time together doesn't constitute a therapeutic relationship.