Eighth Annual Student Symposium

Monday, April 28, 2025

 9:30-11 AM & 2:00-5:30 PM 

City of Ten Thousand Buddhas 
DRBU 2nd Floor Lounge  
1991 Virtue Way, Ukiah, CA, 95482  

Every Spring, current DRBU students are invited to present their written work or recite memorized texts from their classes in the Student Symposium. This day-long conference fosters student public speaking, scholarship, and insight. The audience–fellow students, faculty, alumni, and friends of DRBU–are encouraged to raise questions and comments in response to the students’ presentations. As expressed by Dean Martin Verhoeven: “Shared inquiry is not complete without inspired sharing.” 

The Student Symposium will be held in-person only. Guests who wish to attend part or all of the program may email symposium@drbu.edu to sign up.   

PROGRAM

 

Morning 

9:30  AM Opening Remarks: President Susan Rounds  
9:40-11  AM Session 1: Freedom and the Mind 
      • Bhikshuni Heng Liang, Bhikshui Jin Jr, & Students of MA2: Avataṃsaka Syllabary (Recitation) 
      • Vicittasarra Bhikkhu, “The Paramattha Dhammas and the Way to Freedom from Dukkha”
      • Abigail Anderson, “How the Doctrine of ‘Consciousness Only’ Leads to Bodhi” 
      • Sehen Dilkush Gamhewa,  “The Identity of Stillness”
      • Meiying Cen, “How to Attain and Maintain ‘Freedom from Thought’”
      • Students of Classical Chinese II:  “Jin gang jing 金剛經 (Vajra Sūtra)”

Afternoon 

2:00-2:55  PM Session 2: Self and the World 
      • Students of Classical Chinese IV: Two Poems by Wang Wei 王維
      • Patrick T. Chin, “Svadharma and Social Responsibility”
      • Bishnu Bhatta,  “Letting Go of Truth to Arrive at The Truth”  
      • Taylor Bowser, “A Good Man: More than a Tool” 
      • Caleb Hernandez, “A Poem in the Spirit of the Daodejing”   
3:00-4:05 Session 3: Listening to the Heart 
      • Saipriya Vallabi, “Where is My Heart?”
      • Beth Khuenkhan, “Si as an Emotional Guiding Tool towards the Greater Self” 
      • Bach Xuan Nguyen, “When the Voice in our Head Starts to Whisper”
      • Lavanya Adhikari,  “Innately Good or Crooked: There is Still Scope for Improvement”
      • Tomas Fletcher, Yidan Wang, “Pure Land Praise” 
4:05 Refreshments 
4:20-5:15 Session 4: Aspirations for Bodhi  
      • Edwina Wang, Master Xing’an’s “Quan fa puti xin wen (Exhortation to Aspire for Bodhi)” 
      • Caden Hill, “Earth, Water, and Sunshine: Conditions to Grow the Seed of Awakening”
      • Will Liu, “The Way of the Bodhisattva”
      • Victoria Pang, “The Omniscience of the Bodhisattva” 
      • Students of Sanskrit II: Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya Sūtra Recitation 
5:15-5:30 Acknowledgments