VENERABLE BHIKKHUNĪ TỊNH QUANG
- THE FAVOR TEACHER
The Abbess of Quán Âm Monastery (Southern California)
1.Introducing Quán Âm Monastery
Quan Âm is a small monastery on on the outskirts of Redlands, California, a city founded in the late nineteenth century.
In 2004, the monastery was introduced by the late Venerable Thích Tịnh Trí who bought this property and spent nearly two years creating the Lumbini Garden. At the same time, he had a construction license, so he, together with the lay Buddhists, engaged in renovation of the duplex to be the main hall. The rooms on the left wing are the residences of the abbot, office and visitor’s room and the right wing is the kitchen, dining room and lounge for the visiting monks and nuns.
Venerable Thích Tịnh Trí is my Dharma brother, so we often called each other by the lovely words, "Sư Trí" (brother Trí) and "Sư Quang" (sister Quang). His world name is Lê Văn Chơn, born in 1965 in Thuận An, Phú Vang, Huế. In the early 1980s, Venerable Trí and his relatives traveled overseas and immigrated to Sacramento. He continued his high school and when one of his grandfathers in the Lê family passed away, he and his relatives went to Diệu Quang Pagoda to ask Venerable Bhikkhunī Thích Diệu Từ, the abbess of the pagoda, if it could provide the funeral service and the chanting in seven weeks for the deceased. During this time, the karma to be monk was sufficient, so after doing some labor at Diệu Quang Pagoda for a while, he asked her to be ordained with the Dharma name Quảng Thông. In 1986, he was allowed to receive bhikkhu ordination. Venerable Trí is a very intelligent and courageous man who was in charge of all the construction work, bonsai gardens, tree planting, creation of ponds and the heavy work of Diệu Quang Pagoda in Sacramento. Ever since, it has been a spacious temple with a beautiful and famous Guan Yin statue in the capital of California.
Back to Quán Âm Monastery in Redlands – he chose this name because of a coincidence. Five Quan Yin (Quán Âm) statues were offered to him, so he thought it was the result of karmic conditions to use the title of Quán Âm for the temple. After more than two years of remodeling, the Quán Âm Monastery has a relatively complete facility as an ideal place for local Buddhist practice.
In mid-2006, Venerable Trí was diagnosed with colon cancer and after more than a year and a half of treatment, he passed away near the day of Bodhisattva Quan Yin in 2007 (September 18 in the lunar calendar). In 2007, just before he passed away, I was graduating with a PhD at the University of Wisconsin in Madison City. Venerable Trí and his family and his beloved Buddhists came to Madison to attend my graduation ceremony, and then he invited me to be his sucessor to take care of the Quán Âm Monastery because he was on medical treatment and I rearranged my plans to come to help him.
Quán Âm Buddhist Meditation
12670 18th Street
Redlands, CA 92373
Abbess: Ni SưThíchTịnh Quang
Phone: (909) 389-1570
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
- Biography
Venerable Bhikkhunī Tịnh Quang (world name is Nguyễn Thị Minh) is often called Sister Minh. I am the youngest of my family and was born in Hà Nội in 1953. My father took the whole family to live in the south of Vietnam in 1954. In the 1960s, my father was an officer in the Republic of Vietnam Army and our family shifted to Đà Lạt to live until 1975. In 1970, I graduated with a baccalaureate II and finished the first year of the Department of Biology (science, physics, chemistry, nature) at Thụ Nhân University, Đà Lạt. Later, my mother was not well, so I dropped out of school to help her take care of my family until I left South Vietnam for the USA.
In 1975, because of the good merit our parents planted, except for the older brothers who remained in Vietnam to fight on the HQ805 Battleship of the Republic of Vietnam Army on April 30, 1975, our family left Vũng Tàu for Subic Bay in the Philippines and Guam and finally arrived at Camp Pendleton in southern California to wait. Our family was sponsored by an Episcopal church in Woodland Hills in Canoga Park in mid-August 1975.
After being sponsored by the church and finding a place to live, all family members, besides my mother and the children who attended high school and elementary school, we all got jobs with minimum wage to earn a living. In the evening, I enrolled in computer programming classes at Pierce College, Woodland Hills. I then went on to study computer science at California State Los Angeles while working in this field for fifteen years.
3.Renunciation
In 1989, all my brothers and sisters were reunited with the family in California. At the end of that year, I asked my mother to leave home to live in the monastery with Venenerable Master Bhikkhunī Diệu Từ, Diệu Quang Pagoda. I was given a new Dharma name, Quảng Thuận. At the end of 1994, our master sent me and three other disciples to the International Buddhist Monastery (Phật Học Viện Quốc Tế) in Los Angeles led by Venerable Karuna. Two of us took bhikkhunī ordination, and two received the samaneri going forth. This was the first time Venerable Karuna organized the Great Precepts with the nun who played the role as the leading Venerable Master. Many nuns from various countries attended to receive precepts in the ordination ceremony.
In 1998, Venerable Master Diệu Quang opened a second branch in southern California and I and a few sisters went to set up the temple's main hall, rooms and assist with temple activities. With her skillful arrangement and the efforts of the masses and some zealous Buddhists, Ven. Master Diệu Quang transformed two small houses on the half-acre plot in Garden Grove into an active place. Numerous Buddhists attend Sunday classes and ever since, the second Diệu Quang Temple in the city of Santa Ana has started to take action.
- Return to University
In 1999, I asked the master's permission to leave the temple to continue my studies. In late 2000, I completed my BS degree in computer information systems (CIS) and in early 2001, I went to Madison, Wisconsin to study in the master’s program at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. After a year and a half, I completed a master's degree and continued my PhD program with the Department of Languages and Cultures of Asia with the dissertation on “Buddhist Monastic Education and Regional Revival Movements in Early Twentieth-Century Vietnam.”
- Sharing the Grace of Dharma
When I entered Buddhism, with the simple intention of helping people, my time at Diệu Quang Pagoda to helped me understand that I needed to be trained in a Buddhist environment, but there was no such program in the United States. In Vietnam, the result of the revival of Vietnamese Buddhism is a Buddhist program at basic, intermediate, college and university levels. In fact, Vietnamese Buddhism in the United States has not had had a Buddhist program for all levels, I In 1973, the late Venerable Thích Thiện Ân established the College of Oriental Studies and the International Buddhist Training Institute but, he passed away in 1980, leaving an educational program unfinished.It disappeared because there was no heir.
In 2007, after the funeral ritual of Venerable Thích Tịnh Trí, I and Venerable Bhikkhunī Tịnh Minh (my Dharma sister) maintained activities at the Quán Âm Monastery. Two years later, Ven. Bhikkhunī Tịnh Minh returned to help her family when her father passed away in Hawaii. The lay Buddhists of the Quán Âm Monastery are also taught by our teacher Venerable Bhikkhunī Minh Nguyệt (A Dharma sister of our master), who graduated from the first course of the Vietnam Buddhist Institute in Sàigòn.
Our late Venerable Tịnh Trí named his monastery Quan Âm Buddhist Meditation; perhaps he intended to practice and teach Zen there. He received transmission from Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh to be a teacher when he practiced at Plum Village, France. But when we came to receive the duties as the abbess of Quán Âm Monastery, we realized that the lay Buddhists prefer to follow the Pure Land method and so we turned our studies to the Pure Land.
Following are the activities at Quán Âm Monastery:
- Sunday at 11 a.m. – prayers for the dead and the living; 12:30 p.m. Dharma talk; 1:00 p,m. lunch; 2–4 p.m. walking meditation and reciting the Buddha’s name.
- Third week of each month: one-day retreat.
- Sundays: Learning the Vietnamese language and Dharma activities for students: 9–11 a.m.; 11 a.m. lunch.
- Monastic sessions with venerable monks such as the Most Venerable Thích Như Điển, the Most Venerable Thich Nguyên Hạnh, the Most Venerable Thích Trí Thoát.
- Offering vegetarian food, gifts (sleeping bags, warm jackets, wool gloves, personal hygiene), and confectionery to homeless people on holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, General Holidays. We intend to offer Buddhist ceremonies such as Buddha's Birthday and Vu Lan Day.
- Ritual for the deceased, funerals, and
- Organizing to cook Chưng and Tét Cake packages to celebrate Vietnamese New Year.
- Providing facilities and conditions for Boy Scouts to visit the monastery, participate in the monastery's charitable programs, and complete the requirements for the “Eagle Scout Badge.”
- Selling vegetarian food.
In addition to working at the Quán Âm Monastery, we run a small business to have income to maintain the temple and the Buddhist works. After Venerable Bhikkhunī Minh Nguyệt traveled around the country to share Dharma for a few years, we decided to sell the business and use the entire net amount to restore the Quán Âm Monastery, which was seriously damaged and leaked. The restoration was not simple because I had to overcome a big obstacle and spend more than two years on the plan, but it still was still not finished. In the end, I was fortunate to receive the help of an architect who was willing to redo the drawing for the city of Redlands to accept and permit the construction plan.
With the finances obtained after the sale of the business and a few fundraising parties at restaurants and at Bồ Đề Phật Quốc Institute (Bodhi Buddha Country Temple where we teach a Buddhist history class for intermediate students since 2016), I and Buddhist followers of the Quán Âm Monastery were introduced to a reputable contractor by a lay Buddhist to begin construction in early 2020. Along with all activities around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic spread, the construction work has been delayed, but I hope it will be completed this fall. We at Quán Âm Monastery only wish to rebuild the monastery's facilities so that we can have a good place to practice. After completing Quán Âm Monastery, I wish to have more time to contribute to the field of education of Buddhism, such as participating in teaching and setting up a Buddhist library.
Quán Âm Monastery, July 1, 2020
Bhikkhunī Thích Nữ Tịnh Quang
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English translator: Bhikkhunī TN Giới Hương
Overview of Quán Âm Monastery after complete construction
Front side of Quán Âm Monastery
From left: The Venerable Nguyên Tâm, Venerable Ân Giao
and Venerable Bhikkhunī Tịnh Quang in 2020
Left: Ven. Bhikkhunī Tịnh Quang, Ven. Bhikkhunī Diệu Tánh,
Ven. Bhikkhunī Tịnh Minh, and the Chief Nun Ven. Liên Chi
Left: Ven. Bhikkhunī Tịnh Minh, Ven. Bhikkhunī Minh Nguyệt,
Ven. Bhikkhunī Tâm Nguyệt, and Ven. Bhikkhunī Tịnh Quang with supporters in 2013
Quán Âm statue in 2019
The three steps and salute ritual in 2019
Pkease kindly read the article and view all the photos: 2.36._Ven._Tịnh_Quang_-_Quan_Âm_Monastery.pdf
