Going to Tay Thien Pagoda on summer holiday

      Some monks in yellow were instructing parents to fill in the forms to pledge to send their children to a class to prevent them from playing games at Truc Lam Tay Thien Pagoda.
The pagoda is located on the slope of Tam Dao mountain, 80 kilometres from Hanoi.
A new job for the monks at the pagoda is to help children sent to the pagoda to practice like monks to forget their bad habits of being addicted to games.
A tourist was sightseeing around the pagoda when a boy from Hanoi stopped him to borrow his mobile phone to play the “snake hunting for food” game.
“That is a boring game but I have nothing else to play,” said the boy.
The people who attend the pagoda’s class are not allowed to use phones.
The tourist was hesitating because of the pagoda’s rule when the boy said: “I don’t want to borrow your phone anymore. You know, each time I listen to the Buddhist teachings, I pray to the Buddha to help me forget …’
“Where did you play the games?” the boy’s mother asked.
“I played on father’s computer. He copied for me,” the boy replied.
“When I went to my grandparents’ place, my grandfather took me to an internet shop to play,” he added.
“I also love Play station II. There was Luu Cang who fought fiercely,” he boasted.
The tourist and the boy the parents could not understand all the game jargons the boy used.
His parents said that the used to bring a laptop home for the son to play games.
Meanwhile, his mother said that games were like a drug and you got addicted after playing a couple of times.
However, the class at the pagoda can help the children give up playing such games.
Once at the pagoda, the children eat and wear clothes like the monks. They also do some of the ordinary practices of children from the countryside, things that they can not do when living in the city.
The boy said that he made the bed by himself, swept the floor, washed his clothes and practiced cooking with wood.
They also stand in a queue to go to the mess to have lunch.
At meals, they take their own rations and bring to the dining table where they listen to teachings from the monks.
They will listen to the teachings another time after meals and they wash their dishes together with the monks.
Master Hue Tin said that the children showed good progress very fast.
The Master’s words are validated by the increasing numbers of parents who send their children to the pagoda every year.