New Zealand Fo Guang Shan North Island Buddhist College Study and Cultivate Humanistic Buddhism

The New Zealand Fo Guang Shan North Island Buddhist College started on 26th February 2016, which included Students from China, Taiwan, Malaysia and New Zealand. They all joined this college with the attitude of “Seeking for the truth by reaching the state of purity and entering the treasured mountain to look for the Dharma.” The college was held at the temple every Saturday where they got to experience the monastery life style. English Buddhism Studies was taught by Venerable Miaoyu on Friday night, where her brief explanations of main ideas allowed the students to understand fundamental knowledge of Buddhism and the importance of spreading the Dharma throughout the world. There was also meditation before bedtime to teach the students how to calm and settle the mind.

Rhythm of the Saturday morning bell marked the start of other variety filled classes. The class topics included how to develop a Buddhist mind from Buddhism ideas, Buddhist theories，Memoirs of Past Buddhist Masters，Religious theories， English Buddhism lessons，Ceremonial procedures, administration procedures, meditation and many more. Outdoor gardening practice was also available for the students to learn to cultivate merits and wisdom and accumulate affection and good relationship with fellow practitioners. Therefore the Dharma was able to be put into real life and life could be brightened up with light and warmth. The classmates appreciated the broadness of Buddhism and learned happily under the active and humorous teachings from Venerable Abbess Manshin and fellow Venerables. This established a strong foundation for them to go to further studies.

The topic of “Combining both knowledge and practice” from Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s book “Fo Guang Vegetable Roots” was discussed with the guidance of Venerable Abbess Manshin during the morning reading session, followed by Students sharing their feelings and doubts. The Abbess answered their questions and encouraged them to demonstrate it out in their daily life after understanding Buddhism. Once the knowledge is combined with behaviour, it would become our source of inner power and problems can be solved.

The Abbess gave a speech on 'Hearts are the masters of our lives ' during the Doctrinal Thoughts lesson. Many chapters about our minds were explained. The contents were: 1) Review our past before developing our future; 2) Get the inner wisdom before exploring the knowledge outside our minds; 3) Take the vow to help others prior to developing our own powers; 4) Initiate the Mahayana mind to universally help all beings before going back to our daily lives. The Abbess reminded everybody that the cycle of birth and death was due to our emotions. So we should always inspect our own faultys. 'Tolerance' was a chance of getting back to the right track in life. Peace could be attained if we knew to 'release' Emptiness is the world of turning back. Understanding and fulfilling emptiness is the only way to trace back our valuable wisdom and inner Buddha nature. Transfer our knowledge to wisdom for initiating the compassionate mind and Bodhi mind. Practice the way as a bodhisattva, creating many good affinities and provide service to all beings.

All students were diligent throughout the weekend. They established an internet study group to share and discuss their class notes in order to achieve the best study results. They also found that this journey through Buddhism very precious and vowed to progress and become future Dharma protectors.