Jiuhua in Canada and China:
two mountains, same sect, same heritage

 

Publish: 2016-09-21 19:52:01   Author: Cham Shan Temple   Source: Cham Shan Temple   

 


 

Mount Jiuhua in China is located in Qingyang County, in the City of Chizhou of Anhui Province. Since 401 C.E., when the eminent Chan Master Bei Du from ancient India built the Huacheng Temple on this site, Mount Jiuha has gradually become a shrine for Mahayana Buddhism. During the 8th Century (early years of the Tang Dynasty), Ksitigarbha (Dizang) Bodhisattva manifested as a royal member, named Jin Qiao Jue, of a kingdom in the current Korean Peninsula. He practiced asceticism and propagated the Dharma in Mount Jiuhua, which henceforth has become a center of Dizang Faith, where Dizang Bodhisattva educates and moralizes all beings. Mount Jiuhua, together with Mount Wutai in Shanxi province, Mount Emei in Sichuan province and Mount Putuo in Zhejiang province are called the Four Great Famous Buddhist Mountains in China.

 

Dizang Bodhisattva's virtues of compassion, wisdom, determination and practice represent the spirits of great resolution and filial piety. When The Buddhist Association of Canada Cham Shan Temple was just established, Elder Master Sing Hung, one of the three founders, made a vow to build the Canadian version of the Four Great Famous Buddhist Mountains to propagate the spirits of the four great Bodhisattvas in order to benefit all sentient beings. In recent years, under the leadership of the current Abbot of Cham Shan Temple, Ven. Dayi Shi, the project of the Four Great Sacred Buddhist Mountains in Canada has gained the help and support from all kinds of people all over the world.

 

In July 2016, a delegation led by 93-year-old Elder Master Sing Hung, one of the three founders of The Buddhist Association of Canada Cham Shan Temple, and the current Abbot, Ven. Dayi Shi, arrived at Mount Jiuhua in China to receive the Heritage Incense and make food offerings to 10,000 monastics. In return, Mount Jiuhua of China donated a bronze statue of Dizang Bodhisattva, which is 9.9 meters' high, as a gift to the Jiuhua Shan Buddhist Garden in Canada. The holy statue was shipped to Canada in August. The Buddhist Association of Canada Cham Shan Temple is arranging a Consecration Ceremony for the Dizang Bodhisattva statue in October 2016. Ven. Hui Qing, President of the Buddhist Association of China Jiuhua Mountain, was invited to lead a delegation to attend the Consecration Ceremony here in Canada.

 

Both the Dizang Bodhisattva statue and the Heritage Incense came from Mount Jiuhua in China. This symbolizes that the two mountains in fact belong to the same sect and share the same heritage.