If a person's time in life is eighty years long, then forty years of being ordained as a nun is such a long time; Ven. Bhikkhuni Giới Hương has gone through more than half of a human life already. I assume that at least from the age of eight to fifteen or seventeen, she had the idea of renunciation. In general, people are born at the pagoda due to many different circumstances (which we do not mention here), while most monastics leave and renounce the secular world due to the right causes of liberation. Thus, the time needed to become monastic disciples of the Tathagata must be calculated to include a period of making plans and intentions.
Those who become monks and nuns at a young age are called young child novices (đồng chơn nhập đạo), while adults who marry and later become monks and nuns at the temple are called middle-aged renunciants (trung niên xuất gia) or semi-life renunciants (bán thế xuất gia). The Buddha and the Patriarchs do not distinguish age or gender (men or women); whoever wants to become a nun/monk, whenever, can find Buddhist masters with whom they can take refuge to actualize their wishes. If there is no original master, one must seek a second master to rely on for renunciation and ordination. If this wish is acted upon, a person can become a nun leading a pure and liberated life for herself and others, joining the line of great monastic beings (Đại trượng phu).
Venerable Bhikkhuni TN Giới Hương, abbess of Hương Sen Pagoda in Perris, Southern California, is one who has been engaged with that noble monastic path for the past forty years. And this year, her nun disciples wanted to make a record of her spiritual journey in order to remember this special occasion. Thus, they wanted to call for writings on their master to make a collected book. This is worthy work; therefore, I took the time to express this in writing. Bhikkhuni Giới Hương ordained under Master Hai Trieu Âm in Vietnam in 1979 and has been ordained for forty years as of 2019. The 1980s were certainly a time of hard work and effort for most monks and nuns in Vietnam.
The abbess had to declare residents, permanent or temporary, to the local government, which was not a simple matter. Given the low economic circumstances seen throughout the country, Bhikkhuni Giới Hương must have had difficulty managing to have enough food to eat, fulfilling religious duties at the temple, joining Buddhist schools and educational institutions, and meeting many more challenges—who could dare to imagine? Because suffering in the world is already too much, how could lay people have upheld the Triple Gem as easily as they can now? Therefore, it is certain that striving to become a monastic during the 1980s, which was difficult to actualize, required a great will to overcome obstacles in the temple as well as in the outside world.
I knew Bhikkhuni Giới Hương when I pilgrimaged to the holy places in Bodhgaya and other places in India. I did not know the identity of most monastics before they came to see me at the Vien Giac Buddhist Center in Bodhgaya. I studied abroad in Japan in the early 70s, and I was very sympathetic to the hard situation of students at that time. Therefore, I provided scholarships for monks and nuns studying in India from 1994 to 2011. I helped them and required nothing, just wishing that after they graduated from university, they serve Buddhism well, engage in field of education, and repay their master and temple. That was more than enough. Since then, over nineteen years, 187 Vietnamese monks and nuns studying in India came to me to receive the scholarship. At first, I asked Venerable Hanh Chanh to introduce the students to me, but a few years later, students came to me on their own to express their difficulties. Bhikkhuni Giới Hương was among them. Of course, every person who came to me introduced themselves and their master’s names, expressed their monthly financial needs, and relayed at what level they were studying (bachelor’s, master’s, or doctorate) so that I could make provisions according to each situation. Thanks to them, I could act upon my altruism. At first, there was Venerable Hanh Chanh, and then Rev. Như Tú received it. Of those 187 monks and nuns, it is unknown how many students are still monastics and how many disrobed. How many monks/nuns are teaching at universities or schools domestically or abroad? Or how many people died because of illness or other causes? This result is not accurate for me, but according to the file I am keeping at the office of Viên Giác Hannover, there are 132 students who graduated with doctorates, while the rest have master’s or bachelor’s degrees. Unfortunately, since 2011, I have not continued this scholarship program because nineteen years of such support is a long time. Besides, my age has also increased; I should save time for translating scriptures, writing books, and giving lectures, so that I can let the next generation continuously follow this holy work. I have stopped providing scholarships ever since.
When students monks and nuns complete their doctoral or master's theses, these are often offered to me. So at Vien Giac Buddhist Center in Bodhgaya as well as at the library of Vien Giac Pagoda in Hannover, Germany, many dissertations are displayed, including the doctoral thesis of Bhikkhuni Giới Hương. I read a long time ago the contents of the dissertation, which she wrote in English: Bodhisattva and Śūnyatā in the Early and Developed Buddhist Traditions. This thesis was later translated into Vietnamese, and I was also fortunate to write a preface for her Vietnamese publication in Vietnam as well as abroad. Bhikkhuni Giới Hương is a nun who actively enjoys writing, educating, sharing culture, and doing charity work to help those in need, etc., so she wrote, composed, and translated more than forty works on Buddhist music, poetry, history, philosophy, and literature. Among them are books such as: Ban Mai Xứ Ấn (Dawn in India) and Sarnath—The Cradle of Buddhism. Please visit Bao Anh Lac Bookcase (http://www.huongsentemple.com/index.php/kinh-sach/tu-sach-bao-anh-lac). By exploring the website, you will gain interest and find out more about her.
She also often went to prisons in the United States to help inmates to approach Buddhism, practice meditation, and appreciate their spiritual lives (see the book, A Nun and American Inmates). In addition, she has also returned to Vietnam to teach at the Vietnam Buddhist University in Saigon for many years and has achieved certain results through this teaching. At the same time, she also conducts the training of disciple nuns for the future, as did her Master Hải Triều Âm, who converted and ordained thousands of nuns. For the monastics, in their religious lives, this is the most meaningful way to repay the Buddha and the ancestors’ grace.
Studying for a degree is very necessary for present-day monks and nuns. Because we live in a foreign country, without basic background knowledge of Buddhism and foreign languages, we cannot reach our goal of bringing religion to the locals in the places where we live. At the same time, cultivation is even more important than that. If a monk has only a degree and goes on lectures all year round neither practicing nor keeping precepts-meditation-wisdom, he is like many other scholars teaching in secular life or at universities, etc. Therefore, as renunciants, we must pay more attention to this spiritual practice. Bhikkhuni Giới Hương shows this through bringing up her disciple nuns as well as in daily practice, chanting, and meditating, which adorn her monastic manner. Liberation from samsara is still far from this life, but in the cycle of birth-death and chaos, renunciants know how to make improvements and be mindful: this is also a relative form of liberation in this life.
Tâm Thụy-Võ Văn Tường, who is a talented professor cum photographer of many Vietnamese temples in and outside the country, has published the work Overseas Vietnamese Temples, volume 1, in four languages: Vietnamese, English, Chinese, and Japanese. It is very valuable. For the second volume and the book Famous Ancient Buddhist Temples in Vietnam, he asked Bhikkhuni Giới Hương to translate these from Vietnamese into English. Venerable Nhật Từ in Vietnam and the Venerable Nguyên Tạng in Australia reviewed it before it was published. For the Japanese and Chinese translations, I took up the task.
After this, Mrs. Thiện Tâm-Suzan from Boston asked me to introduce Bhikkhuni Giới Hương to translate a book by the Dalai Lama, Buddhism: One Teacher, Many Traditions, from English to Vietnamese. Bhikkhu Dao Tinh in Atlanta edited this work, while I tried to review the translation, the idea of the sentences, and the Buddhist terms. In addition, I also wrote other introductions for her books, which were composed for publication both in Vietnam and outside the country as follows: Commentary on Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva, Vajracchedikā-Prajñāpāramitā-Sūtra, Agama—A Dharma Rain Transforms the Defilement, Cycle of Life in Śūrangama Sūtra, Vajracchedikā-Prajñāpāramitā-Sūtra, and so forth. Since then, Bhikkhuni Giới Hương and I have had many opportunities to have exchanges in this aspect, and I found that her style of writing or translation is very clear, easy, and creative, whether it is Mùla-madhyamaka-karikà or emptiness, whether written in English or Vietnamese. That's why sometimes I think that in Vietnam, we have our senior nuns, such as the Most Venerable Bhikkhuni Như Thanh, the Most Venerable Bhikkhuni Diệu Không, Venerable Bhikkhuni Thích Nữ Trí Hải, etc. In America or abroad, Vietnamese Buddhism also has some outstanding nuns, including Venerable Bhikkhuni Giới Hương, who contributes to the nuns’ Sangha in particular and Vietnamese Buddhists in general.
I found it necessary to write in encouragement and support of a collected book like Forty Years in the Dharma: A Life of Study and Service—Venerable Bhikkhuni Giới Hương. Because when an author comes up with a work that the readers neglect without care, it also means we are not appreciating her heart for Buddhism. So I write these solemn words to her for the 40th anniversary of her Buddhist ordination, which also implies that we directly and indirectly rejoice at her deeds done over a long period. At the same time, I also hope that there are many other eminent nuns who contribute to the common duty for the Buddhist home. In this way, culture, literature, lyrics, as well as Buddhist thought can easily enter the hearts of people.
We wish that in the remaining days of her life, maybe twenty, thirty, or forty years, she will continue to compose and teach more and more, so that monastics and laypeople never forget her image in this world.
Writing on November 18, 2019
at Viên Đức Monastery, Southern Germany,
With metta,
Thích Như Điển
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Chanting the Śūraṅgama Heart Mantra
The Most Venerable Như Điển and his Sangha
visiting Hương Sen Temple on April 12, 2018
Giving a lecture at Hương Sen Yard in April 2018
Please read all articles and view all photos:2.1._Fourty-Year_A_Period_of_Spiritual_Road-_Thich_Nhu_Dien.pdf
