BLIA New Zealand Youth Larry Yang Stay True to the Initial Aspiration

2021 Australia New Zealand Buddhist Youth Conference (ANZBYC) successfully concluded in early July, the hearts of the participants were full love and happiness. Even though some of these youths have participated numerous time in this kind of conference, they still learnt a lot and gained a different perspectives. Larry Yang, one of the BLIA Auckland YAD members was also a committee members for the 2019 ANZBYC hosted in Auckland. That was his first time being involved in organizing a big event. He learned how to take care of participants and work with the team. Meanwhile, his initial aspiration of learning Dharma has sprouted through the Buddhist seminars from the conference. It benefited both his studies and career, which made him even more determined to learn Buddhism.

Larry was not only active in the Temple’s activities but also made some achievements in his career. After five years of unremitting efforts, Larry was registered as a Medical Laboratory Scientist with the Medical Sciences Council of New Zealand in September 2020. Venerable Master Hsing Yun gave him a reward as an encouragement through Abbess Manshin after he heard the news. Larry was so grateful to have an opportunity to participate in a laboratory’s ongoing new experiment of using human saliva to detect the COVID-19 virus in July 2021.

In 2013, Larry came to New Zealand alone to study medical laboratory science. He struggled to deal with challenges and pressures from his studies. Because of his faith, he came to Fo Guang Shan Temple New Zealand in 2017 and became one of the volunteers. Under the guidance and encouragement of the Venerables, he participated and planned many events in the Temple, such as Buddha’s Birthday Multicultural Festival, Sangha Day, Chinese New Year, YAD fundraising and many more. He later joined BLIA YAD Auckland and became one of the committee members. He then started learning dharma instruments, chanting, meditation and lion dance from the Buddhist College. At the end of 2019, Abbess Manshin sent him and another two youths, Sinjun Chong and Hongkai Gu, back to the headquarters in Taiwan for dining service training. The 3 youths were very lucky as they had the opportunity to met Venerable Master Hsing Yun under the arrangement of the dean of the Tsung-Lin university, Venerable Miaonan. Larry was full of admiration and felt touched by Venerable Master from the meeting.

“The most impressive thing is Abbess guided the youths with unconditional care and patience. Abbess often led the youths to do chore work and teach us lessons from doing work. When I was lost and felt hopeless, Abbess would give me some good suggestions and help me in solving the issues efficiently. Every time when the youths go back to the Temple, Abbess will make sure there is enough food and will always prepare food for us to take away. For a while, I was busy of my work and study. Abbess specially prepared food and asked other YAD members to deliver it to my house. She just want me to focus on my studies without worrying about my daily meals. Abbess and other venerables love made me feel love and not alone.

Larry believes that the Temple is very important to people who have faith. More importantly as the Auckland Temple is fully filled with positive energy, he found the value of his life in the Temple. When he feels lost, the Temple helped him find the right direction; when he had a difficult time, the Temple gave him confidence and courage. Living in a foreign country, the Temple feels just like his home. All the venerables take care of the youths. He is proud to to part of the big Fo Guang family. Because all the BLIA youths have the same faith and encourage each other, they get the guidance and support from senior members of BLIA.

Throughout his journey in New Zealand, Larry has met different virtuous companies at different time. He was grateful for all of them, particularly for Abbess Manshin who is always willing to cultivate young people. Venerable Master Hsing Yun said: Buddhism need youths, youths need Buddhism even more. Every youth has their own initial aspiration, however, following by the changing of the times, environment and experience, the initial aspiration may became unclear, uncertain, and even disappear.

Stay true to initial aspiration is Venerable Master’s expectation for Buddhist youths, same as the Abbess. Larry felt he became stronger after getting close to the Temple, and knew how to find a solution and ask for help when facing challenge. The guidance and support from Abbess gave him the power to move ahead. Larry has a vowed to be more diligent and committed, gain the wisdom in the future to serve the community in New Zealand and spread the seeds of Humanistic Buddhism in this pure land.