Act to Treat, Not to Trick

Practicing the Three Acts of Goodness in Toronto Buddha’s Light Children Halloween Celebration

By FGS Toronto

Fo Guang Shan (FGS) Temple of Toronto Chinese School and Buddha’s Light Children Dharma Class Mississauga and Markham jointly hosted a children’s Halloween event on October 30th. The theme of the event was “Practice the Three Acts of Goodness; Do not play tricks!” The intention was to teach students to practice the Three Acts of Goodness and not to play tricks on people thereby inspiring the truth, goodness, and beauty of human nature. On this day, 51 children dressed in their favourite costumes and gathered in the Five Contemplations Hall. They paraded through the Buddha’s Light Bookstore, Water Drop Teahouse, Library, and Main Shrine to ask for candies.

Through a well-prepared Chinese course for Halloween and the arrangement of festival activities, the teachers of the Chinese school made the children feel the joy of a western festival. This also strengthened their ability to talk about Halloween in Chinese. The teachers led the students to learn various Chinese words and phrases related to Halloween and used the tune of a children’s song to teach them how to say “Happy Halloween” and “Trick-or-Treat” in Chinese. Students were very interested in learning and also made Halloween crafts together.

After the kids in the Buddha’s Light children dharma class sang “Ode to the Triple Gem”, the teacher used an animated film and the life story to

explain to the students the spirit of “giving” and the importance of developing the habit of “sharing”. The students learned how to use the impartial and joyful mind to deal with people and explained in their own words what they viewed as “generosity”. And then, the students started to design their paper candy bags with creativity and talent. All bags were well decorated. Each finished bag exhibited a clever and unique idea from an individual student. The decorations included spiders with multiple eyes, jack-olanterns, candy corn, and beautiful artwork.

Little girls dressed up as multi-coloured unicorns, purple witches, and green peacocks. Little boys dressed up as Super Mario, Wu Kong, and police. Their appearances brought all the colours of the rainbow to the Temple and filled the room with joy and vitality. The children lined up in the Five Contemplations Hall according to their class and then they quietly proceeded to the kitchen, Buddha’s Light Bookstore, and Water Drop Teahouse to ask for candies. The temple volunteers from each stop enthusiastically distributed candies to the children. When the children were receiving candies, they politely gave auspicious greetings and sincerely said thank you to Dharma Sisters. Their faces beamed with joy and they could not wait to share the joy of harvest with their fellow young friends.

Venerable Chueh Fan, the Abbess of FGS Temple of Toronto, encouraged the students to choose one of the candies they had just received with joy and give it to uncles, aunties and grandmas who participated in the Dharma service. Venerable Chueh Fan wanted to let kids understand that they will gain more from their sharing.

In addition, Markham Buddha’s Light Children Dharma Class celebrated Halloween in advance on October 29th. The students dressed up as cartoon characters, batman, and firefighters. The teachers and volunteers also dressed up in their costumes joining the Halloween atmosphere. All kids were divided into three groups, carried their own candy bags they designed and went to the service desk, library, Water Drop Teahouse, and offices. At each stop, they had to say a secret code like “Do Good Deeds, Go! Go! Go!”, “Speak Good Words, Nice! Nice! Nice!”, “Think Good Thoughts, Yes! Yes! Yes!”, and “Auspicious Greetings” to pass through.◆