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Hòa Thượng Thích Thánh Nghiêm
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Vị tổ khai sáng Hội Phật Giáo Pháp Cổ Sơn, Đài Loan
HT Thích Thánh Nghiêm vừa viên tịch tại Đài
Loan vào lúc 4 giờ chiều ngày thứ ba, 3-2-2009, thọ thế 79 tuổi đời.
HT Thánh Nghiêm là một trong bốn vị cao tăng của Phật Giáo Đài Loan
trong thời hiện đại, người có trăm ngàn đệ tử tại gia theo tu học. Ngài
đã sáng lập dòng thiền Phật Giáo Pháp Cổ Sơn (Dharma Drum Mountain.) từ
năm 1989, một tổ chức PG có chi nhánh ở Mỹ & Úc Châu.
HT Thánh Nghiêm sinh năm 1930 trong môt gia đình nông dân tại miền đông
tỉnh Giang Tô, Trung Quốc, xuất gia đầu Phật năm 13 tuổi và đến Đài Loan
tỵ nạn trong thời gian xảy ra nội chiến ở Trung Quốc vào năm 1949. Năm
39 tuổi, Ngài đã đến Nhật Bản du học và đã lấy bằng Tiến Sĩ Phật học sau
6 năm tu học, sau đó ngài trở về Đài Loan bắt đầu công cuộc hoằng dương
Chánh Pháp cho đến ngày viên tịch.
Chi tiết về tang lễ của Ngài sẽ được cập nhật
khi có thể. Chúng con Tăng Ni và Phật tử Tu Viện Quảng Đức từ Úc Châu
vọng hướng về Pháp Cổ Sơn Đường Thượng, đảnh lễ Giác linh cố Hòa Thượng,
thành kính nguyện cầu Ngài sớm tái sanh trở lại cõi giới này để tiếp tục
công cuộc hoằng pháp lợi sinh.
Nam Mô Tiếp Dẫn Đạo Sư A Di Đà Phật.
Đây là một vài tác phẩm của Ngài đã được dịch sang tiếng Việt:
Học Phật Quần Nghi: 75 câu vấn đáp về
Phật học. (sách) HT. Thích Thánh Nghiêm
Phật Giáo Chính Tín: 69 câu vấn đáp về
Phật học. (sách) HT. Thích thánh Nghiêm
108
Lời Tự Tại của Pháp Sư Thánh Nghiêm. Thích Hải Châu dịch
Taiwan's Buddhist
Master Sheng-yen dies
The Buddhist Channel, Feb 3, 2009
http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=48,7717,0,0,1,0
TAIPEI, Taiwan
-- Taipei - Sheng Yen, one of Taiwan's four most respected Zen Buddhist
masters, died of natural causes at the National Taiwan University
Hospital Tuesday at the age of 79.
"He died of multiple organ dysfunction
syndrome at around 4 pm (0800 GMT)," said a spokesman of the Dharma Drum
Mountain, a Zen Buddhist centre established by the eminent monk.
Rated as one of Taiwan's 50 most influential
people in 400 years, Sheng established the mountain retreat in Taipei
County in 1989 to promote Zen Buddhism.
President Ma Ying-jeou said in a statement he
was "saddened and shocked upon hearing the news" about the death of
Sheng-yen, who the president said is "good at the use of language to
touch people".
"The concept of spiritual conservation he
advocated is not only religion but philosophy and attitude of living,"
Ma said, referring to the monk's relentless efforts to press for peace
and a simple way of living.
"He was a highly valued and much respected
master in Taiwan and we feel a big loss for his death," said Su Jun-pin,
spokesman of Premier Liu Chao-shiuan.
The late master had hundreds of thousands of
disciples, ranging from ordinary people to politicians and celebrities.
Both incumbent President Ma Ying-jeou and his predecessor Chen Shui-bian
sought advice from the master.
Born in a poor farming family in 1930 in
eastern Jiangsu Province, Ven Sheng Yen became a monk at the age of 13
and went to Taiwan in 1949 after the civil war.
He joined the Kuomtiang army in 1949 and fled
to Taiwan with the Kuomintang troops after they were defeated by the
Chinese communist forces at the end of a civil war.
At the age of 39, he went to Japan for
religious study and earned a master's degree and doctorate
after six years of study.
He became a monk again in 1959 and trained in
solitary retreat for six years in southern Taiwan. He completed a
master's degree in 1971 and doctorate in Buddhist literature in Japan in
1975.
He became abbott of Nung Chan Monastery in
suburban Taipei in 1979 and in 1989 founded the International Cultural
and Educational Foundation of Dharma Drum Mountain.
As a Buddhist Zen school master, he taught a
number of celebrities, including Chinese martial arts actor Jet Li as
well as Lin Hwai-min, founder and artistic director of Taiwan's Cloud
Gate Dance Theatre.
Sheng taught dharma principles in the US,
where he set up a meditation centre in New York in 1979, which earned
him renown.
In the following years, he worked to promote
Chan Buddhism at home and abroad. He had become a professor at the
"Chinese Culture University," deputy director of the Buddhist
Association of the United States and founded the Chung Hwa Institute of
Buddhist Studies.
Master Sheng Yen visited mainland China
several times for religious exchanges.
After the deadly May 12 earthquake last year,
he was actively engaged in quake relief work. The Dharma Drum Mountain
planned to help rebuild four schools, a hospital, a water plant, a new
village and set up a scholarship to fund children in quake-hit areas to
finish the primary and secondary education.
Master Sheng Yen
The Founder of Dharma Drum
Mountain
"The Dharma is so good, yet so few people know about it and so many
people mis-understand it." It was based on this simple belief that
Venerable Master Sheng Yen founded Dharma Drum Mountain.
Calling himself "an itinerant monk pressing ahead through the wind and
snow," and named as one of the fifty most influential people in Taiwan
during the past four hundred years, Venerable Master Sheng Yen has had a
life full of miseries, deprivations, tests, and turning points.
The Master has had a weak physique and been prone to illness since
childhood. After becoming a monk in the Wolf Hills in China, he went
through years of having to perform deliverance rituals day and night for
a living, then served in the military, and was finally re-ordained.
Thereafter, whether on solitary retreat, studying in Japan, in America
spreading the Dharma, or founding Dharma Drum Mountain, he has always
been able to find a way forward when there seemed no way out. In his
hardships his compassionate vows strengthen, and through his
perseverance his wisdom shines. To him, life is a process of realizing
the Buddha dharma.
To rise the status of Buddhism and the quality of monasticism in Taiwan,
at the age of forty Master Sheng Yen resolutely went to study in Japan.
After obtaining a doctorate, he began to propagate in both the United
States and Taiwan, and, as a Dharma heir in both Linji and Caodong
lineages, traveled around the world to teach Chan practice, ushering
numerous people both Eastern and Western into the world of Chan. In
order to spread the Dharma through language and concepts accessible to
modern people, even with his tight schedule the Master still continues
to write, and has published over one hundred books.
An erudite scholar, the Master has established the Chung-Hwa Institute
of Buddhist Studies and Dharma Drum University to cultivate first-class
researchers. In recent years, he has also engaged in public dialogues
with leading figures in the fields of technology, art, and culture, and
has even collaborated with other denominations and religions. His
expansive mind and international outlook have earned him recognition
from people in various fields both at home and abroad. Under his
guidance, Dharma Drum Mountain has established its bases in Taiwan its
roots in Chinese Buddhism while steadily progressing toward greater
internationalization and diversification.
Nguồn:
www.quangduc.com
http://www.buddhismtoday.com/viet/pgtg/nguoi/HTThanhNghiemvientich.htm
