FGS South Island Facing Another Wave of COVID-19 with Calmness

Since the previous week, New Zealand has come under a second wave of COVID-19 attack, resulted in a few cases of community transmissions. Being the hardest hit area, Auckland was declared a COVID-19 Alert Level-3 area, and the rest of New Zealand Alert Level-2. At Alert Level-2, Fo Guang Shan (FGS) Temple South Island in Christchurch was allowed to continue its operation but with the imposition of several prevention measures, such as, compulsory registration and the measuring of body temperature of visitors. Despite such inconveniences, people still continue to visit the Temple, ever willing to comply with these prevention measures.

For the whole of last week, the people visiting the Temple daily still numbered around 100, with the majority consisting of patrons of Water Drop Café. These patrons very much love the Café’s vegetarian cuisines and delicacies. Some of them came to try out the food after reading the good comments in the Facebooks, some came on the strong recommendations of friends, and some were regular customers who have their meals daily in the Café. Some patrons commented that, after the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, people begin to pay more attention to their health and the healthy ways of living. This has resulted in many them taking up vegetarianism.

Presently, Fo Guang Yuan (FGY) Art Gallery Christchurch is hosting the Professor Kuo Yen-Chiao’s Traditional Chinese Painting Exhibition. Since its opening, the Exhibition has received high acclaims, and the local Kiwi are awestruck by this cross-cultural Exhibition. Many of them remarked that this was the first time they came across traditional Chinese paintings. Though they could not understand the Chinese words in the paintings, nevertheless, they could feel the openness and majesty of Mother Nature depicted in the paintings. They became peaceful and happy just looking at the serene life style of the characters in the paintings. Professor Kuo’s daughter, Louisa, has been serving daily as the Exhibition guide explaining the meaning and content of each of Professor’s paintings to the visitors so that they may have a deeper understanding of Professor’s works. Some visitors seemed to have their own interpretations of the Chinese words written and spent considerable time figuring out the intentions of the painter. Concurrent to Professor’s Traditional Chinese Painting Exhibition, the Art Gallery is also holding Gallery Curator Abbess Manshin’s Floral Art Exhibition. Visitors were full of praises for the simple and yet unique floral arrangements presented, and praised Abbess for her skills and wisdom.

Due to the recurrence of COVID-19, at FGS Temple South Island, the Saturday morning Dharma Services and the daily Ksitigarbha Dharma Services were temporarily suspended. But to enable devotees to pray to their ancestors, special altar site was set up in the Buddha Hall for the erection of ancestral tablets. The pandemic has in fact deepened the devotees’ belief and trust in the Religion, resulting in an increased number of them visiting the Buddha Hall for prayers. Where else at the Buddha Hall, the Kiwi visitors preferred to participate in Sutra transcription, and felt happy copying Master Hsing Yun’s Words of Wisdom.

Imbued with the teachings of Humanistic Buddhism, FGS South Island is ever ready to offer its best service to the people. It not only facilitates the Dharma cultivation of the devotees, but also offers a Dharma Home to Buddha’s Light International Association (BLIA) members to continue their journey in Humanistic Buddhism.