In honor of our children, members from the Dharma Realm  Buddhist Association opened their hearts and the doors of the  main dining room inside the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas  Friday to welcome more than 800 children and teachers from  schools throughout Mendocino County. Young children attended the first half of the day, and older students came to a  repeat performance later in the afternoon. The 9th Annual Cherishing Our Youth Day was one of celebration: with dance, music,  song and food. It was also a day illuminating "world peace and  cultural understanding" - the theme of this year's event.

Cherishing Our Youth Day came about when the Venerable  Master Hsuan Hua decided he wanted to bring the community  together in a celebration of young people, explained the city's  spokesperson, Terri Nicholson. "His idea was that we should  have one day each year to honor the elders in our community,  and one day each year to honor the children," she said. "Honoring Our Elders" and "Cherishing Our Youth" are the names  of the two annual celebrations which "promote the spirit of  respecting elders every day and cherishing the youth in every  household, so that the goal of happy families, a wholesome  society, and a peaceful and prosperous country can be realized,"  the founder once said.

But with all due respect, those being cherished chose different words to describe the event. "Fun," "great" and "cool"  were the main adjectives heard from those in attendance Friday morning.     

The second half of the morning started with a Chinese folk  dance featuring 14 girls from Developing Virtue Girls School.

Dressed in  red and  adorned  with red and  yellow head  feathers,  they danced  and clapped  in front of  the giant  Buddha statue. Behind the statue hung a huge wall-hanging of "Gwan Yin  Bodhisattva," the woman with 1,000 hands and 1,000 eyes, who represents compassion.

Angel Yang, a senior at the Developing Virtue School, played with  the audience between performances. "How are you?" she asked the  attentive crowd. Then, she taught them how to ask that question in  Chinese. "Ni Hao Ma," she said, having the children repeat after her.  Interestingly, Nicholson said Yang did not know any English when  she came over from Taiwan as a young girl in the sixth grade.

The handbell choir from Willits High School took the stage shortly  after the folk dance ended. White-gloved hands of eight students and  one music teacher rang their bells in harmony, playing four gentle,  peaceful songs. Even the children remained quiet, appearing to be taking in the beauty of the sound of the bells. But it was the tumbling  exhibition presented by members of Carol's Dance Studio that seemed to appeal to the children most of all. Eight little tumblers - some as  young as 5 years old - dressed in blue, black, red and purple velvet,  took turns flipping and flopping across a mat. Carol's assistant, Stacy  Larkin, 16, led the girls in handstands, walkovers, cartwheels and  more.

Instilling Goodness Boys School orchestra finished off the celebration with some Chinese music. The group played the Erhu and  Pipa and other instruments likely unfamiliar to some cultures, and the  delicious fragrance that had filled the air throughout the morning was  now being consumed along with the food that created it. Comments from the crowd  afterward confirmed the occasion was a successful one. "I thought it was great," said chaperone Lilia Ceja. Her son, Sebastian,  8, echoed her sentiments and her daughter, Rachel, 4, simply said "fine."  Fabian Moreno, 7, said "it was cool." Others seemed to agree. "It was  very interesting. I liked the way they stressed looking up to their elders,"  noted Lori Neese. She, too, was a chaperone who was attending the  event with Oak Manor School.
Chelsey Neese, 7, Adriana Macias, 7, and Andrea Chavez, 8, were all  in her group. "I thought it was fun. I liked the gymnastics," Neese said.  Macias agreed. "It was great," she said. Her favorite part was "the  dancers."
"It was nice. It was cool when they did the cartwheels and stuff,"  said 8-year-old Tyler Rockel. Chris Inman, also 8, and sitting near Rockel,  joined in saying he liked it "when they did the backflips and cartwheels.  And I liked the food," he added. "I liked it when the girls were doing  tricks," said second-grader, Sabra Underwood, of Frank Zeek School.

While gymnastics was one of the key words spoken among the  children, the food was not forgotten either. "I loved it," said Christine  Fitzpatrick, also in second grade at Frank Zeek. As for the show, she  said, "I liked all of it."

Venerable Master's Dharma Words
♦One should dwell in a small and humble home, keep nominal monetary wealth, have a good disposition, and put an end to one's karma.