VENERABLE BHIKKHUNĪ NHƯ QUANG
- Skill in Discipline
The Abbess of Phước Quang (Southern California)
Venerable Bhikkhunī Như Quang (world name Lương Thị Thu Dung) was born in 1961, District Six, Saigon. She is the second daughter in the family with five sisters (her father is a soldier of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam). He died in 2012. Her mother, Samaneri Huệ Cảnh, eighty-three years old, ordained as a nun in 2011 and received the samaneri precepts in 2014. At a young age, she had a dream to lead a pure life in a monastery like the nuns at Sắc Tứ Phụng Sơn Tự Pagoda (also called Pagoda Gò / Cây Gõ) located beside her house, which she visited daily.
Time passes fast. There were many ups and downs according to the circumstances of the country. In 1976, she moved with her family to her hometown in the countryside of Long Hưng Commune, Lấp Vò District, Sa Đéc Province (now Đồng Tháp). It was a place where the nunhood was beginning to flourish and gradually revive. In July 1978, she took refuge with the Venerable Bhikkhunī Như Dung at Thanh Hoa Pagoda (not far from her home). Venerable Như Dung is a virtuous nun respected by everyone. She is now eighty-eight years old. During this apprentice period, novice Như Quang started to study two chanting courses in the morning and afternoon to prepare the first step for those who want to become truly ordained, to become a nun to overcome reincarnation. That is the first standard; it must be observed without excuse. Originally, her father was a ancestor worshiper, while mother was Catholic, so she did not have the consent of her parents to leave home and live in a monastery.
Sitting: Venerable Bhikkhunī Như Hương, Venerable Bhikkhu Minh Mẫn,
Venerable Bhikkhu Giác Sĩ.
Standing center: Venerable Bhikkhunī Như Quang
The Vesak in 2015 at Phước Quang Temple
Because of good conditions available in the past, day by day she secretly raised aspirations at night while she waited for the family to sleep soundly. She quietly burned an oil lamp, crawling under a table, using the cloth to shield the light from the outside as she studied scriptures. Each time she opened a page of a sutta, she silently prayed: “May the Buddhas in ten directions and the Heaven Dharma Protectors bless me.” Disciple Diệu Quang[1] studied the Buddhist sutras: “What I learn, I will remember; learn one but I can understand ten with the bright wisdom. Bodhi mind is developed. Life after life I always ordained, practiced to repay the parents’ grace to become a Buddha for the sake of many.”
Venerable Bhikkhunī Như Quang recounts: Every time I opened the pages of the scriptures to learn, I recited a prayer of gratitude. Thanks to the strength and determination, after two weeks, I had memorized the two prayer courses. Master was very pleased and praised me. However, due to my family situation, until 1982 when my parents were not at home my Master was taken from me and my younger sister. Như Minh went to the Phước Huệ Pagoda (Sa Đéc) to become a nun with the the Venerable Bhikkhunī Giác Ngọc. Her younger sister, Venerable Bhikkhunī Như Minh, stayed in Phước Quang Temple, southern California, USA). For many generations, Phước Huệ Nunnery has been a place to train talented nuns. At that time, this temple was also a place for nuns to study and become self-sufficient to earn their living by means of making soy sauce and tofu sauce which was famous in the Mekong River Delta (called the Fourth Region). It was administered by five elder nuns among the nun sangha in the southwest of Vietnam.
As time went on, the four masters passed away, and now the only elder left is Master Giác Ngọc, who is 104 years old. Venerable Bhikkhunī Như Quang graduated from high school, and became a bhikkhunī in 1987. She studied basic Buddhist studies in the first course (1989–1993) at Thiện Minh Pagoda (Thủ Đức) presided over by the Most Venerable Từ Thông, ninety-three years old.
Afterward, Như Quang attended the first course of Propagating Thiện Hòa in 1994, and graduated in 1997 at Quảng Đức Center (294 Nam Kỳ Khởi Nghiã, the third District) led by the principal,the Most Venerable Trí Quảng, Head of the Sangha Missionary Department. In 1994, at the same time, Ven. Như Quang and Ven. Như Minh founded a small place named Phước Quang Temple, which has only 140 meters square in the Seventh District. Every day, each nun had a bicycle to drive on the familiar road from the temple to class. Despite the difficult circumstances, the two sisters still tried to overcome and lived according to their abilities. The responsibility of the nuns was always directed towards the wish of “preaching is a duty, saving sentient beings is ambition.”
In 2007, the two sisters moved to the United States and settled in southern California in the mobile home area of Westminster. At this second homeland, even though it was just as hard as the previous difficulties, the two of us always tried their best. Besides, Như Quang often said: “If we are without Venerable Master, the abbot of Bát Nhã Pagoda, he spreads his compassion to guarantee that the two of us (Như Quang and Như Minh) can present here, in this country of America.”
Ten years passed. In July 2017, the two sisters had to rely on the sympathy and help of the monks, nuns and lay Buddhists from near and far, so we established Phước Quang Pagoda with 10,800 square feet in Garden Grove City, southern California.
Phư
Phước Quang Temple
Abbess: Venerable Bhikkhunī Như Quang Như Quang
& Venerable Bhikkhunī Như Quang Như Minh
12471 Euclid Str., Garden Grove, CA 92840
Cell: (714) 360-3938, (714) 213-5692
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Ven. Như Quang (right) and Ven. Như Minh (left) at the main hall
Currently, there are four Dharma sisters living and practicing with Ven. Bhikkhunī Như Quang. The pagoda has to pay a mortgage for thirty years and every month the nuns have to work hard to sell vegetarian food to cover funding. The temple is small, but every Sunday there is a chanting program at 10 am, and lunch after 12 am. Though not many people, it still warms the heart to see the bhikkhunis full of joy.
Every year in addition to the two main celebrations of Buddha's Birthday and Vu Lan in March of the lunar year, the temple organizes two days of “Mother's Gratitude Day” according to the Maudgalyāyana Scripture in which all children have to know how to repay their mother. The temple also organizes a week of autumn retreat for nuns at the end of August (usually twenty-five nuns and some Buddhist practitioners) specializing in chanting the Lotus Sutra. Venerable Bhikkhunī Như Quang established the temple with the aim to create facilities for nuns and female Buddhists to return to the temple to practice together, because “virtues of the sangha are like the sea” and the image of “many yellow robes” is very beautiful in this foreign context.’
Phước Quang Pagoda was still limited in facilities with a modest campus, but she set up a tent in the yard so the Dharma sisters from many different places can gather to practice together. Although conditions are inadequate, she keeps her aspiration to open the retreat with a devotion to Buddhism so that it can be present here. The nuns from afar understand her goodwill and are hospitable to return and practice together to nurture precepts-concentration-wisdom.
At the summer retreats, she is often invited to read the precepts on the Uposatha. She strictly observes the vinaya, so in the retreat, the rule of Phuoc Quang Pagoda is to prohibit leaving the boundaries of the temple to keep it serene and peaceful for other nuns during the retreat. The temple has opened two summer retreats for nuns in 2018 and 2019.
The Most Venerable Diệu Từ respected the conduct of Ven. Như Quang so much that she donated twenty fabric beds for the nuns to have a place to lie down. She also ordered her disciples to cook food for the nuns. The Most Venerable Minh Mẫn gave his spiritual and physical support to the nuns. Ven. Như Quang's room has three beds for sharing with other nuns who can stay to cultivate. She does not require a private room even though she is the abbess. Although lacking facilities, she is happy to serve and respect the image of the nuns, the disciples of the Tathagata.
Following the Buddha's compassion, during the covid-19 pandemic, she made many vegetarian rice hamburgers to donate to the doctors, nurses and staff at Garden Grove Hospital, Fountain Valley, Oregon Coast of Fountain Valley and others. She also purchased 3,500 masks from Vietnam to offer the doctors, nurses and medical staff who are the leading Bodhisattvas in saving lives.
Hương Sen Temple, May 1, 2020
A Lotus for You,
Bhikkhunī Thích Nữ Giới Hương
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The nuns in summer retreat chanting
at the main hall of Phước Quang Temple in 2019
From the middle left: Venerable Giới Hương and Venerable Như Quang
in the summer retreat at Huệ Quang Pagoda, 2016
[1] Diệu Quang is her previous Dharma name as she attained the taking refuge ceremony of the Triple Gem and Five Precepts.
Please kindly read this article and view all photos: 2.25._Ven._Như_Quang_-_Phuoc_Quang_Temple-_TN_Gioi_Huong.pdf
