This is my wife, Jean, standing by the entrance of Pure Land Learning College. Picture was taken during her recent visit/learning trip to this school (or monastery) from 24/2/07 to 10/3/07.
In June 2001, Master Chin Kung established Pure Land Learning College in Toowoomba, Brisbane, Australia. In order to continue the mission of spreading Buddha’s education, he found it was necessary to have a homebase where decent Buddhism lecturers can settle in and concentrate on their cultivation and learning. From time to time, they invite adherents from all over the world to the College to witness their learning outcome.
The most recent visit/learning activity was scheduled on 24/2/07 for 2 weeks. Having learned a lot from others about Master Chin Kung, we took this as a very precious opportunity to meet the master in person and to treat ourselves with an overseas trip together. However, at the last minute of the decision process, we realized that one of us had to stay at home to look after our dog, Spot. As Spot listens to me more than to anyone else of the family, I decided that I gave up this opportunity, and let Jean travel with the New Zealand group of 10 to enjoy her first time ever of a visit/learning tour. Through the assistance of Amituofo Chanting Society of Auckland, this group of 10, led by Mr. Lee, set off for Brisbane on 24/2/07.
Jean was very much impressed by the College’s valuing the real essence of things instead of pursuing the appearance. For instance, she thought the school building could be something like a traditional Chinese temple. But it is not. It is just an ordinary Australian building. She was told that the building used to be a Catholic church. The College maintained it as it was after the purchase. This enables them to save a great amount of money and energy in property maintenance, and thus, their delivery of education quality can be more assured, and more resourses can be saved for education related activities.
A short distance from the main building is a vegetable farming section growing organic produce. This is where the residents of the school can exercise their physical body by involving in the garden jobs apart from the spiritual cultivation. Together with another even bigger area of vegetable garden farther away, the amount of vegetable produce is sufficient to feed the 1000 visitors of this activity. The 3 meals each day are simple but abundant and fresh.
It is said that Master Chin Kung’s biggest dharma protector, Mrs. Han Ying, was very good at cooking, and also took the meals provided to visitors as a very important part of the religious activity. So during her life time, she had created a lot of recipes of vegetarian dishes. In this activity which Jean attended, each of the visitors was given a recipe book based on Mrs. Han Ying’s cooking principles. After Jean returned home, she made a few dishes following the recipes and found that we all liked their taste. Most important is that the materials required in the recipe are very ordinary stuff and the cooking process is simple.
The daily activities started from 6:15am in the morning and ended at 9:00pm in the night. Each of Master Chin Kung’s disciples was allocated at least one lecturing session of two hours. The topics were surrounding the three classical works – The Ten Good Deeds Sutra (十善業道經); The Supreme Response Chapter(太上感應篇); Disciples Regulations(弟子規). This covers the 3 major beliefs of Chinese community: Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. Master Chin Kungs believes that the teachings taught in these three classical works are like the three legs of a Tripod. That means attaining Buddhahood begins from fulfilling the teachings of these three works.
Besides the three lecture sessions each day, there are Buddha chanting practices in between the classes. Buddha chanting is held at Ten Thousand Surnames Ancestors Memorial Hall (萬姓先祖紀念堂). In the hall, Jean saw that the three sides of the wall were full of wooden plaques each of them represents a family branch in Chinese history. A religious ceremony called ‘Three times reminder" (三時繫念) is conducted here regularly to remind both the ancestors and the alive of their endeavour to immigrate to the Pure Land.
With this tight learning schedule, Jean said, one can empty their mind easily for receiving the good knowledge. To her personal experience, she totally dropped the material world matters as soon as the first two days had past. She felt her mind was full of dharma pleasure since the 3rd day and onward.
On 4th March, the visit/learning activity came to its peak because the Master Chin Kung arrived the College from Hong Kong to conduct a memorial ceremony for his biggest dharma protector, Mrs. Han Ying, and his dharma initiator, Master Zhang Jia(章嘉大師).
For years, most of the adherents have been learning Buddhism with Master Chin Kung by means of CDs, books or on-line videos without having a chance to see their teacher in person. So the atmosphere in the hall was a mixture of respectful, exciting and surprising when Master Chin Kung entered the hall. They have known from CDs that their teacher looks young and is healthy despite his being 81 years old. Now they witnessed this fact by themselves. After the ceremony was done, the adherents of each region had a photo with their teachers and the master.
Time flies. On 6th March, they said goodbye to the college and carried on their remaining activities at Amitabha Brisbane Association. On 10th March, they came back home with a more purified mind. I am surprised to see that Jean has become a more committed vegetarian after this visit/learning trip.
1 comment:
Interesting to know.
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