Words have power, and chanting provides a means of harnessing that power as we walk our path towards awakening. As such, chanting can be likened to a form of meditation, and its inclusion in Annual Winter Training enables practitioners to become progressively more aware of their own buddha-like qualities.

As human beings, our tendencies and actions can at times cloud our intrinsic goodness, chanting can also provide means for self-reflection, and support inner-resolve to develop our best qualities for the wellbeing of ourselves and others. During the chanting, participants listen to Master Shinjo chanting the Mitsugon-in Words of Reflection and Resolve, composed by the 12th century Japanese monk Kakuban to address the monastic corruption he witnessed around him.

Chanting as meditative self-reflection creates, in the words of Her Holiness Shinso Ito, 'a thoroughly positive, affirming exercises of rising up and taking action - a joyous activity, not a sombre one.' The merit of chanting generates hope that all may cultivate their innate potential for awakening and joyous liberation.