Ep. 029: The Big Bathing Baby Buddha of Wuxi
Come along as my wife and I help induct a brand-new Buddhist abbot, and visit "Heaven" in a Buddhist theme park!
Of all my tempular experiences, perhaps none was both as intense and as broadening as the year I spent teaching "Buddhism in English" to monks at Jianzhen Buddhist Academy at Daming Temple in Yangzhou, Jiangsu, China. The effects of that adventure continue, as I still have former students seeking me out on WeChat.
My Affinities with Jianzhen Academy's Students
Twice, though, the connections I made there led to some strange experiences. In 2010, I was on the dais at the dedication of a new temple in Ji'ning, Shandong. And in 2012, my wife and I were VIP guests (our name tags said so!) at the investiture of a former student, Venerable Neng Chao, as abbot of Kaiyuan Temple inside Meiyuan ("The Plum Garden") in Wuxi, Jiangsu.
Neng Chao is a great guy. Often on Friday afternoons, after classes at the Academy, he would drive me to the bus station, where I would catch the bus to the airport and then fly home to Shenzhen, as he drove on "home" to the temple in Wuxi. Though he struggled with English (I hear it's much better now), he always did his best to communicate, and was unfailingly cheerful.
That was in 2007-2008. So we were delighted when, in late 2011, another student--a monk formerly named Dao Cheng, and now Da'an--contacted us about flying (at Kaiyuan Temple's expense) to Shanghai, whence we would take a train to Wuxi. We--along with hundreds of other guests--were put up in a swanky hotel on the shores of Lake Taihu, and toured around by Da'an, the "Master of Ceremonies" for the whole affair.
