Fulfilling an Unfinished Vow: A Kongshan Temple Anecdote (Part 7)

In January 2024, the Teacher personally convened several meetings in New York, inviting key monastic and lay executives—including senior monastics and chief administrators. Prior to this, even the Venerables closest to the Teacher were unclear why the Teacher insisted on traveling to the U.S. to look at land despite being physically exhausted. It was during this meeting that the Teacher slowly unfolded this profound history...

The story traces back decades: the very first place the Venerable Guru encountered the Gelug tradition and subsequently propagated the Lamrim was actually in the United States, spanning from the East Coast to the West Coast. In the U.S., the Guru connected with many Buddhist elders, high-ranking monastics, and lay Dharma protectors, including the late Mr. Shen Jiazhen, who championed the establishment of the Buddhist Association of the United States and the Chuang Yen Monastery.

Mr. Shen Jiazhen deeply admired the Guru's conduct and urged the Guru to send monastics from Fengshan Temple to America to teach the Dharma. The Guru did send Venerable Jing Tong and other monastics to stay at Chuang Yen Monastery. However, due to various unfulfilled conditions, this initiative was interrupted.

Nevertheless, the Guru never forgot Mr. Shen Jiazhen's earnest wish. After meeting the Teacher, the Guru repeatedly spoke of this aspiration: to establish a monastery and a monastic community in the U.S. to benefit practitioners with karmic connections in the region, thereby fulfilling Mr. Shen’s vow.

To make the Guru’s aspiration one’s own —this is one of the primary reasons the Teacher is so actively dedicated to establishing a monastery in the United States.