Hội nghị thượng đỉnh toàn cầu về Từ Bi

Buddhist priest Alan Piercey is a hospital chaplain in Burnie, a fireman with his local brigade in Penguin and a one-time purveyor of chocolate. Media player: "Space" to play, "M" to mute, "left" and "right" to seek. He is known to the people on the North West coast by a number of different names, the most often used borrowed from a popular animated movie. "My ordained name is Venerable Shih Jingang (pronounced Cher Gin Gun)," he said. "Most people around the North West Regional Hospital in Burnie just know me as Sifu. "And if you ask any five-year-old, they'll know exactly who Sifu is: a character from Kung Fu Panda. I believe it's a cartoon."

Thank you. Well, good morning. Giving all praise and honor to God. It is wonderful to be back with you here. I want to thank our co-chairs, Bob and Roger. These two don’t always agree in the Senate, but in coming together and uniting us all in prayer, they embody the spirit of our gathering today.

Happy Tree of 2015

Your Holinesses, Your Excellencies, Your Emminencies, dear Most Venerables, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen. Please allow me to read the words that our Beloved Teacher, Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, wished to deliver here today: “We are grateful to gather today to announce to the world our commitment to work together to end Modern Slavery; and to plea to those who traffic in human beings to stop their exploitation; and to ask world leaders and organisations to protect the dignity of these young women, men and children. They are our daughters and sons, our sisters and brothers.

As a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, working as a Buddhist chaplain at several of Melbourne's hospitals and as well as Melbourne assessment prison, I have witnessed many personal tragedies faced by the living and of course the very process of dying and that of death and many of these poor people faced their death with fear, with misery and pain before departing this world. With the images of all these in my mind, on this occasion, I wish to share my view from the perspective of a Buddhist and we hope that people would feel far more relaxed in facing this inevitable end since it is really not the end of life, according to our belief.

One day, a poor boy who was selling goods from door to door to pay his way through school, found he had only one thin dime left, and he was hungry. He decided he would ask for a meal at the next house. However, he lost his nerve when a lovely young woman opened the door. Instead of a meal he asked for a drink of water. She thought he looked hungry so brought him a large glass of milk. He drank it slowly, and then asked, "How much do I owe you?" "You don't owe me anything," she replied. "Mother has taught us never to accept pay for a kindness." He said..... "Then I thank you from my heart." As Howard Kelly left that house, he not only felt stronger physically, but his faith in God and man was strong also. He had been ready to give up and quit.

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

A roof of the prayer hall collapsed early this morning at the Vietnamese Buddhist Center in far Southwest Houston. The Houston Fire Department tells Eyewitness News that no one was inside at the time and no one was hurt. An alarm went off about 1:45am this morning at the temple on Synott between Old Richmond and West Bellfort, alerting the monks who live on property the building to collapse. One Buddhist follower we spoke to says he received a phone call at home and just had to come see this for himself. A roof of the prayer hall collapsed at the Vietnamese Buddhist Center in far southwest Houston KTRK Photo/ Linh Nguyen "At first we didn't really believe it... We drove out here. Luckily nobody was in the building," said Khoa Ngo. The prayer hall can hold hundreds of people, and parts of the ceiling collapsed to the ground. HFD says engineers will inspect the building later today to determine what should happen next.