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Draft:Master Da'an

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Da'an (Chinese: 大安; pinyin: Dà'ān) is a Chinese Buddhist monk and the current Abbot of Donglin Monastery.

Master Da'an
Master Da'an
TitleAbbot (Buddhism)
Personal life
Born
Religious life
ReligionBuddhism
SchoolPure Land Buddhism
TeachersChuanyin

About

Master Da'an (1959 - ) is a Buddhist monk and the current abbot of Donglin Monastery, the Ancestral Monastery of Pure Land Buddhism.

Born in 1959 in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, Master Da'an was a guest professor at the Chinese Buddhist Academy and a professor at the University of International Business and Economics before ordaining under Venerable Chuanyin in September 2001.[1] As the Abbot of Donglin Monastery, he was in charge of and was actively involved in the construction of the Donglin Great Buddha, the world's tallest gold-plated bronze statue of Amitabha Buddha.[2]

Master Da'an is known for practicing and propagating the Pure Land teachings and is capable of using modern scientific theories such as string theory and converging them with Pure Land teachings to show that Buddhism does not contradict modern science. [3] Master Da'an has travelled to numerous countries such as United States of America, Canada, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore to give Dharma talks on Pure Land Buddhism and to conduct Buddhist ceremonies such as the Three Refuges and Five Precept Ceremony, Brahma Net Sutra Bodhisattva Precepts Ceremony and Amitabha-recitation retreats.

Master Da'an uses the Five Pure Land Sutras and One Sastra and the works of the Pure Land school's patriarchs as the foundation of his teaching with strong advocation on the parallel importance of both understanding and practice.

Exposure to Buddhism

When he was young, Master Da'an used to defame Buddhism, considering it to be outdated and pessimistic. However, after being gravely ill and hospitalized for a period of time, he started to deeply consider about the evanescence of life and explored various types of religions before finding that Buddhism, particularly Pure Land Buddhism could resolve the issue of life and death and was the best path he was looking for.

Bhikkhu Ordination

In 2001, Master Da'an had a strong thought of ordaining as a Buddhist monk during his 1 milllion Buddha-recitation solitary retreat at a temple in Hubei which he initially suppressed in 1991 due to strong opposition from his family. So powerful was the thought that on the last day of the retreat, he wrote two notes, "to ordain" or "not to ordain" and decided to kowtow and draw lots before the Buddha. Master Da'an decided to draw the lot three times and to determine whether he should ordain as a monk or not of which he managed to draw the ordination lot four times (fourth time was to seek confirmation) in a row. Thereby, strengthening his resolve to renounce the household life.

Having recount the story to a Venerable from Jiuhua Mountain who found it strange, the Venerable asked Master Da'an to demonstrate what he did of which Master Da'an did and got the same lot for the fifth time. Believing it to be the power and strength of Amitabha Buddha and the recitation of His name, Master Da'an left the household life smoothly and ordained as a monk under Venerable Chuanyin on September 2001.[4]

References

  1. ^ Liu, Qi. "Adaptation to Third-Party Payments: Statistical Analysis of Digital Donations Made to Donglin Monastery". MDPI.
  2. ^ "The Ancestral Monastery of Chinese Pure Land Buddhism 蓮宗祖庭". Donglin Monastery.
  3. ^ An, Saiping. "The Apologetic Discourse towards the Convergence between Pure Land Buddhism and Theoretical Physics of the Contemporary Chinese Buddhist Monk, Da An (1959- )". MDPI.
  4. ^ "Exceedingly rare causes and conditions for becoming a Buddhist monk of Master Da An". Chùa Hoằng Pháp.