Ling Jiou Mountain, another Zen Buddhist society, extended its condolences over Wei Chueh’s death yesterday, saying that the Chung Tai Chan Monastery has contributed to religious exchanges between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, and helped Chinese access and learn Buddhism. He also constructed the Chung Tai World Museum to showcase Buddhist artifacts and rubbings from inscriptions on stone tablets donated by the Forest of Stone Steles Museum in Xian, China. To nurture the young generation, he also set up an elementary school in 2004, a junior-high school in 2006 and a senior-high school in 2009. However, due to his growing number of followers, he began to plan the Chung Tai Chan Monastery in Puli, which was inaugurated in 2001. He used the seven-day Zen retreat and dharma assembly as a way to disseminate Zen teachings, and was said to have contributed to a clean society campaign. His way of preaching was said to be lively and flexible and had no fixed mode. He later conducted a retreat in temples in Yilan, Hsinchu and Hong Kong before settling in a cottage in New Taipei City’s Wanli District (萬里).įirm in belief and living an extremely simple life, he answered the public call to preach and built Lin Chuan Temple beside his cottage in 1987. Wei Chueh woke at 2am every day when other monks were still asleep to clean up the temple and would salute Buddha at the main hall when other monks were taking noon naps. He became a monk in 1963, following Zen master Lin Yuan (靈源) in Keelung’s Shifang Dajue Chan Temple. The monastery is temporarily closed after founder Grand Master Wei Chueh passed away on Friday. Visitors wait outside the Chung Tai Chan Monastery in Nantou County yesterday.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |