Srimala College’s Students Gains Spiritual Wisdom

The 29th Fo Guang Shan (FGS) Srimala College 20 student cohort had arrived at FGS South Island on the 6th of November, and was given a morning class the next day on the 7th by FGS Abbess Venerable Manshin and South Island Supervisor Venerable Jue Xi. During the class, some advice was given on how to adjust one's behaviour and mood whilst cultivating one's self, in harmony of one's environmental surroundings. The Venerable spoke out on how FGS North Island temple had in the beginning, faced tremendous challenges in the beginning before the construction phase. Using that as an example, she described how the difficulty had been overcame, by utilizing the good karma available, to finally reach the stage today – a wonderful spiritual temple for the local people.

Venerable Jue Xi discussed about adaptation to a new environment, how to once and again start from a blank drawing board, a brand new beginning, giving one's self a fresh start. One must be understanding and in harmony with karmic causes and conditions, at ease and feeling competent in one's very role. The students asked many questions in an eager and successive manner, in which the Venerable used the lessons from their own personal experiences to answer as appropriate. The class was certainly full of honest, heart-to-heart conversations, a beautiful session where the inner spirit and Buddha's teachings had resonated together.

The afternoon class session was conducted by Buddha’s Light International Association (BLIA) South Island New Zealand in the form of a forum. The speakers invited to the forum included FGS South Island President See Shen Lee, Vice President Louisa Kuo, BLIA advisor John Lai, Dharma Lecture Rona Ku and BLIA Director Jack Liu among others.

Dharma Lecture Rona Ku spoke of BLIA South Island's early history; President See Shen, Lee shared her story of the path in learning Buddhism; Vice President Louisa Kuo also shared a story about the connection of Buddhism with family; BLIA Advisor John Lai described the development of his Lavender fields. BLIA Director Jack Liu shared his volunteer tour guiding experiences at the South Island monastery too, describing how he would use Buddhist concepts to describe the artwork to visitors.

During the forum too, the students were also shown video clips made by BLIA South Island depicting the February 22nd Christchurch earthquake, and an annual working report for BLIA South Island this year 2014. Students were invited to raise any queries they had during the session to the five speakers, whom were most welcome to answer them nicely, so that they can more fully appreciate the spiritual beauty of Humanistic Buddhism in Christchurch, and understand the important vision - of spreading the glorious wisdom of Buddhism.