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  • Master Guoxuan

    Published:2015/01/11 Venerable Masters Views:1581

    The Path of Great Love of Master Guoxuan

    Master Guoxuan is a highly respected master in the Buddhist community. Having been ordained for nearly thirty years, she has consistently followed the path of turning love into the practice of a Bodhisattva, using a worldly approach with an otherworldly heart. She has walked an ordinary yet extraordinarily meaningful path as a practitioner.

    In 1987, at the invitation of the local believers, Master Guoxuan moved to Mituo Temple in Qian County, Shaanxi, which at the time had only two cave dwellings. Despite the harsh living conditions, many of her disciples urged her to move to a temple with better conditions, but she politely declined. She told her followers, “Each place nourishes its people. Since the Buddha and Bodhisattvas brought me here, it means I have a connection with this temple.”

    Since then, Master Guoxuan has led her disciples to follow the ancient Buddhist practices of Chinese monks, relying neither on government funding nor alms to sustain the temple. She led her disciples out of the temple to reclaim land, fill ditches, and grow crops for self-sufficiency. They developed orchards, conserved resources, took in orphans, established schools, repaired roads, and built a hospital. She walked a path of helping the poor, promoting Buddhist culture, and advancing development.

    Mituo Temple is located in an area of barren slopes and ditches. Every time it rained heavily, the soil eroded badly. During drought seasons, strong winds and sandstorms ravaged the land, creating a harsh ecological environment. Local villagers faced severe water shortages, with many sharing a single well, and in some places, the water quality was so poor it couldn’t be directly consumed. Many young adults had to leave the land to work elsewhere. However, Master Guoxuan was not intimidated by the difficult circumstances. She led her fellow nuns to start reclaiming the land, one shovel at a time.

    To improve the situation, Master Guoxuan led the monks and nuns in planting trees and creating forests on the barren slopes. Due to the harsh natural conditions, the survival rate of the saplings was low, and even those that survived were often destroyed by drought. Nevertheless, the Master never gave up and continued planting trees year after year. To improve the survival rate, all the monks and nuns worked together, carrying water to irrigate the saplings. The Master worked tirelessly, even dragging her sick body to labor alongside everyone else. Her sole wish was to turn the barren slopes and ditches green, improve the ecological environment, and create a lush green belt with the sounds of birds and the fragrance of flowers. She traveled everywhere, contacted nurseries, bought saplings, invested tens of thousands of yuan to purchase water pumps, power equipment, and three-wheeled vehicles to pump and transport water for the trees. From 1987 to the present, she has dedicated herself to reclaiming barren mountains and slopes. She has planted over 200,000 trees, creating a forest area of several dozen hectares, and has transformed the barren slopes and ditches around the temple. Over the course of five years, they filled in the two barren ditches, and the amount of earth they moved and tools they broke cannot be estimated. Every year, they also cultivated nearly 100 acres of farmland and harvested almost 50,000 pounds of grain, along with over 4,000 pounds of various grains, achieving self-sufficiency. Not only were they self-sufficient, but they also actively helped the poor. Today, Amitabha Temple has transformed into a beautiful paradise with green all year round, fruit trees lined up, birds singing, and the fragrance of flowers, bringing peace to the hearts of all who visit. The temple has also been recommended by the Xi’an Cultural Tourism Bureau as a “Religious Cultural Tourist Site.”

    In the fall of 1989, Master Guoxuan had the idea to establish an orphan school after learning that over one million primary school-aged children across the country were unable to attend school due to family poverty. The government called for the public to support these children’s education through the “Hope Project.” She learned that several villages near Amitabha Temple also had many children who were unable to attend school, which deeply troubled her. After more than two years of hard work, she finally built a spacious, green, and year-round school for nine-year compulsory education. Former Minister of Culture Gao Zhanxiang named the school “Loving Care School,” which is the only nine-year compulsory education school founded and funded by monks in China. The school is equipped with books, instruments, and teaching facilities, with a total investment of over 3 million yuan, covering more than 30 acres and with a building area of over 3,200 square meters. Over 200 orphans and poor children have been taken in, and the school runs according to national educational policies without any religious overtones. Master Guoxuan was repeatedly recognized as an advanced education worker by Xi’an City.

    Master Guoxuan also raised 1.5 million yuan to build a 3.3-kilometer road connecting the village, laid drainage pipes, and invested 360,000 yuan to improve the power supply, laying the foundation for creating a well-off village. She established a feather flower factory that provided stable employment and economic opportunities for women in several surrounding villages. The products are sold abroad, and the factory became self-sustaining, helping solve the employment difficulties of many rural women. To address the lack of medical care, in 1992, Master Guoxuan raised a million yuan to establish Qian County Buddhist Light Hospital, which has treated hundreds of thousands of patients. Later, she donated the hospital to the local village committee. Throughout her work to establish a harmonious society, Master Guoxuan has received multiple accolades from provincial, municipal, and county-level authorities.

    Excerpts from the Record of Master Guoxuan’s Teachings:

    Buddhism is truly not mysterious at all. True Buddhism is about helping people have a correct understanding of work, learning, and life. The sense of mystery arises from our inner attachments, delusions, and discriminations. If we study Buddhism carefully and seriously, we will understand what the Buddha is teaching us. The Buddha said, “The Dharma is in the world, not apart from the world’s awakening.” If you do not carefully arrange and handle your life, how can you arrange the matters of learning Buddhism? Learning Buddhism helps us realize the rarity and preciousness of life. It is about using the false to cultivate the true, understanding the laws of movement in the universe, and realizing that life is but a moment in the vast universe. Therefore, we must seize the present moment and not waste our lives. Truly applying our life is what it means to be a genuine practitioner of Buddhism.

    I have chosen to follow the Buddha, ordain as a monk, and practice the Dharma to save all beings. In this life, I will never retreat. My revered teacher, Master Hongxian, advised me, “Be sincere in chanting the Buddha’s name, be pure and upright in your conduct. A monk’s suffering is to eliminate suffering, and enjoyment is to deplete blessings.” For decades, I have kept my teacher’s teachings in my heart and used them to warn myself. More importantly, through learning Buddhism, I have realized the value of life, and the greatest enjoyment in life is serving others and not wasting one’s existence.

    Thirty years of unwavering faith, thirty years of selfless dedication, thirty years of struggling against destiny, the belief in perseverance has tortured and pained my heart. I have learned resilience, not complaining, silently enduring everything, ensuring my heart remains pure and dignified, and truly applying my life to realize the value of existence. I am just an ordinary monk; I still experience the usual emotions of joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness, and I continue to live in the real world. I have merely chosen the right path in life, the right faith in life. In the realization of the Buddha, I have correctly manifested the value of existence, with sincere heart protecting the sanctity of the Buddha’s teachings, and with actions showing the compassionate essence of the Dharma. I live selflessly, without desire, upholding the true quality of being human.

    Source: Sohu, Sina

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