Purple Lotus Publisher > Journal > Volumn NO. 16

The Story of the Kuan Yin Statue at the Purple Lotus Buddist School

By Victor Hazen

The closing of the year 2001 and the welcoming of the New Year were marked by an auspicious occasion at the Purple Lotus Buddhist School. On December 31, 2001 a consecration was held for the Kuan Yin statue. The massive 21 ft statue had arrived at the Purple Lotus Buddhist School after a long journey by ship across the Pacific Ocean from Taipei, Taiwan.

The story of the Kuan Yin statue's journey to California is intricately tied to the rise and fall of a temple that had once stood in Hsi Chi, a city located near Taipei.

The Elite Troup

In a neighborhood in Taipei, there once stood a memorial shrine that was erected on behalf of the spirits of the deceased of the area. This shrine had been erected after some local residents had discovered bone remains in the area. Many of these bones belonged to a certain class of ghost spirits called 'Jing Ying Fu'.

The Jing Ying Fu are a powerful class of ghost spirits of mostly Japanese origin, whom in their previous human incarnation had stayed in Taiwan on a secret mission. Highly trained in espionage and martial arts, they were an elite group of soldiers who shared a strong bond of loyalty and commitment to their mission. But somehow something went awry with their mission. Because of this, they committed suicide together. By the power of their sense of loyalty and resolve in their shared mission, they were able to reunite in the netherworld. Usually, it is extremely difficult for any sentient being to escape the most severe forms of negative rebirths for countless eons after committing the karmic act of taking one's own life, which is the equivalent of taking the life of a Buddha. The Jing Ying Fu had extraordinary power and their shared mission perhaps goes back much further and deeper than is first apparent, and their shared purpose has been empowered by their vows and loyalty to their mysterious mission. It is possible that they had once been samurai warriors. Samurai often would perform the ritual seppuku, an honorable form of suicide practiced by samurai after failing a mission, dishonoring any vow, or losing in battle.

When people later began discovering bones in the area, they also had various experiences relating to the ghosts. In particular, the Jing Ying Fu communicated to people through various mediums. Thus, a memorial shrine was built on behalf of the Jing Ying Fu and other ghost spirits of the area. Included in the Jing Ying Fu was also a group of martyrs and loyal officials who had served in the Taiwanese government.

Later, the government decided to build a road through the same location of the shrine. The Jing Ying Fu, communicating through mediums, expressed that if the building of the road were to proceed then the shrine would need to be moved to a new location.

A new location was found at a temple on a mountain in Hsi Chi, a city near Taipei. The Jing Ying Fu made another condition that the shrine must be moved by a procession of one hundred men dressed in white. In this manner, the shrine was shortly thereafter moved to the temple on the mountain.

The Phoenix and the Woman Master

Eventually, the managers of the temple discovered that the geomantic location of the mountain and temple was dominated by a rising phoenix. In Feng Shui, the phoenix and dragon represent the forces of yin and yang. From this, it was realized that the temple would flourish if a powerful woman master were to preside over the temple.

Thus, a woman master was sought for.

At that time, Master Samantha Chou was contacted in San Bruno, California, by a True Buddha School student who was an acquaintance of a manager of the temple. The temple was offered to Master, and she was beseeched to come to Taiwan and to preside over the temple. Master Samantha then consulted with His Holiness, Grand Master Sheng-yen Lu, about the matter. Grand Master Lu approved of Master Samantha accepting the temple. Furthermore, Grand Master Lu gave the temple a new name: Thunder Gate Temple. This was named after the city where the True Buddha Tantric Headquarters are located - Redmond, Washington. The phonic rendition of Redmond into Chinese is Thunder Gate.

Master Samantha Chou arrived at the Thunder Gate Temple only to discover that the temple was in shambles: the temple was without running water and electricity; it was on a mountain that was difficult to access; it was in a state of disrepair with much work to be done; and there were many ghosts. Yet Master Samantha stayed, mostly out of her great compassion for the ghosts. Before Master Samantha had left the U.S., the managers of the temple had collected stupas containing people's ashes. This was mostly for the purpose of raising money. However, the management had not performed proper bardo ceremonies on behalf of the deceased whose ashes were kept in the stupas. Thus, there were many ghosts at the temple when Master Samantha arrived.

Master Samantha's bardo ceremonies were very popular, and people from all over would attend her ceremonies despite the inconvenience of reaching the temple and the temple's poor conditions. At one point, Master Samantha was going to leave because she did not want the work of the temple. There was already enough work to do at PLS in the U.S. However, at the last minute she was beseeched by ghosts who pleaded with her to stay, because she was a powerful bodhisattva, and she was their only hope. Compassionately, Master relented and decided to stay.

Master Samantha's ceremonies were also of great benefit to many people. She gave many empowerments, blessings, and teachings, helping people to make great progress in their cultivation. In particular, Master taught and empowered students on how to perform their own Homa fire ceremonies.

Rumors and Intrigue

The managers of the temple were very impressed with Master Samantha's power, and they wanted to exploit master's ability to attract people's wealth. The managers told Master how great she was and how wonderful it was for her to be there, but Master insisted that she was there only to deliver the ghosts and benefit sentient beings, not for any other ulterior motive, such as financial gain.

Master Samantha Chou's presence at Thunder Gate and her powerful ceremonies attracted a great deal of fame and rumors. There were rumors that Master Samantha would split off from the True Buddha School and start her own sect founded by her, or would take over the True Buddha School and become the new lineage Master. Some of these wild rumors were inspired by a misunderstanding over the name of the temple---the Thunder Gate (Redmond) Temple. Some people believed that the association of this temple name with the name of the location of the True Buddha Tantric headquarters in Redmond Washington signified some conspiracy for Master Samantha to relocate and start her own Tantric Headquarters. Master Samantha was never someone to invest her time defending herself by wondering what others think about her. She has always dedicated herself to compassionate work, preferring action over talk.

The managers of the Thunder Gate Temple even tried to encourage Master to start her own sect. They were only interested in Master's ability to attract wealth to the temple. Later, it was discovered that even the criminal organizations were involved in the money flow of the temple.

Master decided that she would leave soon. She encouraged the ghosts to practice more and to reach achievement and liberation, and that she couldn't stay much longer to help them.

Master finally gave up the Thunder Gate Temple after presiding as the master of the temple for six months and returned to the U.S. In 1997, several years after Master Samantha Chou had left the temple, there was a scandal in Taiwan in which a fraudulent master had swindled people out of money. The Taiwanese government believed that a crackdown on some of these schemes under the disguise of religion was necessary. Many of the temples, and shrines for the deceased, had been erected illegally, and the government, to show their resolve on the crackdown, decided that these structures should be destroyed. The people of Taiwan fought the government to keep the temples and shrines and finally the government relented, but not before taking down one temple. Oddly enough, that temple was the Thunder Gate Temple.

In 1997, two of the large statues from the Thunder Gate Temple were brought from Taiwan to the Purple Lotus Buddhist School in the U.S. These are the statues of the two temple guardians: Wei To and Jia Lan. A contractor who had won the bid to demolish the temple happened to be the brother of a True Buddha School student. When the contractor reached the temple site on the mountain, the Kuan Yin statue had already been knocked down by a crane and the two Dharma Protector statues were to be the next in line for destruction. The contractor contacted his brother who made a phone call to the U.S. and asked Master Samantha Chou if she wanted the Dharma Protectors to be saved. Master Samantha decided to have the two Dharma Protectors transported to the U.S., and they arrived at the school on time for the 1997 opening ceremony. Meanwhile, the temple was destroyed and the partially destroyed Kuan Yin statue lay on the ground in front of the temple and became covered by weeds.

Ordination in the Subtle Realms

When Master Samantha left the Thunder Gate Temple in Taiwan and returned to the US, many of the Jing Ying Fu and ghosts also joined her. Soon, a Ksitigarbha Hall was erected at the Purple Lotus Temple in San Bruno and a shrine dedicated to the Jing Ying Fu. On June 15th, 1997, Guru Grand Master, Sheng-yen Lu consecrated the Purple Lotus Buddhist School and, on that same day, six monks and nuns received their ordination vows from His Holiness. Yet something even more amazing was occurring during the ceremony for the ordination vows: three thousand, three hundred and eighty spirits of the Jing Ying Fu also received their ordination vows!

This was a very unique and extraordinary event. It is highly unusual for such things to occur in the realm of ghosts. The Jing Ying Fu had asked Master Samantha if they could receive their ordination vows. Master had consulted with Grand Master Sheng-yen Lu, and Grand Master had given his consent. The Jing Ying Fu have now become great protectors at the Purple Lotus Buddhist School. They have reached great achievement in their practice. Master Samantha Chou has mentioned many times in the past how dharma brothers and sisters of the Jing Ying Fu regularly perform eight cultivation sessions of practice everyday, putting us humans to shame. Some of the Jing Ying Fu have attained liberation and some of them have been reborn as humans and are presently attending the Purple Lotus Buddhist School.

Salvaging the Statue

For five years the Kuan Yin statue of the Thunder Gate Temple in Hsi Chi had been abandoned on the mountain and was overrun by weeds, dry twigs, and branches. It was sometime around this period when the miraculous half-faced image of Kuan Yin on a wall at the Purple Lotus Buddhist School had appeared. For five years, it was believed that this was a miraculous image of Kuan Yin with a sad expression on her face. In 2001, Master Samantha had been invited by a local True Buddha chapter in Taiwan to perform dharma ceremonies to help relieve a series of natural disasters that had been hitting Taiwan, especially from the typhoons that had ravaged the Hsi Chi area, where the Thunder Gate Temple once stood and where the Kuan Yin statue was now lying abandoned. These typhoons may have been the karmic result of the destruction of the Kuan Yin statue by the Taiwanese government. Thus, Master Samantha went to Taiwan in 2001 to perform dharma ceremonies and salvage the Kuan Yin statue. No connection had been made between the appearance of the sad-faced Kuan Yin image on the wall at the Purple Lotus Buddhist School in California and the Kuan Yin statue in Hsi Chi until Master Samantha saw the half destroyed statue at this time.

Inside the hollow core of the statue, a swarm of bees had built a bee-hive and were living there. True Buddha School devotees hired a driver whose truck was equipped with a crane. The driver spent an hour using heavy equipment to cut and remove the branches and weeds from around the statue. Other workers and disciples on the site made all sorts of noises for two hours to ward away the bees from the statue. Yet during all this time, the bees continued to stay in the statue and ignored the crowd, showing no signs of being disturbed. The bees did not fly away or sting people, acting as though they were totally unperturbed.

This posed a serious problem for the removal of the statue. Thus someone called the fire department to send an emergency rescue truck. While waiting for the firemen to arrive, Master Samantha walked fearlessly over to the beehive in the statue, and while standing a very short distance away, she talked to the bees and advised them to leave. Master also performed the refuge empowerment for the bees and helped them take refuge in the triple jewels. Master gave them a blessing to not be reborn in the animal realm in their next incarnation and to have the opportunity to be reborn in the human or deva realm in their next life and to learn the Buddhadharma. Oddly enough, as soon as Master completed the ritual, the bees started flying out one by one from the abdomen of the statue and left.

When the firemen arrived, only two stubborn bees had remained. Eventually they had to be smoked out. Curiously, one of the fire truck's front tires was stuck in the ditch and the truck could not move at all as soon as the fire truck had arrived. Before the firemen could even get out of the truck, the rear tire had become flat. Thus, before the firemen could get to the beehive, they had to first rescue themselves from the truck problem!

Later, the firemen confessed that before making their trip up the mountain, they had discussed and made up their minds to capture all the bees to bring back and soak in wine to make some kind of tonic. According to Master Samantha, the Dharma Protectors had caused the problems with the fire-truck so that the bees had time to flee, because of these unkind thoughts of the firemen. Afterwards, Master gave the firemen copies of the booklet "Karmic Stories" and advised the firemen to not commit any acts of killing. Also, with compassion, she told them that when they evict other animals in the future, they should first chant the rebirth mantra on behalf of the animals.

After the statue was salvaged, it was repaired in Taiwan.

Reuniting with the Protectors

Finally, after all these unique events and causes and conditions, the Kuan Yin statue was delivered by truck, after a long journey by sea, to the Purple Lotus Buddhist School in mid-December of 2001. The Kuan Yin statue, through the effort of devotees and a crane, was finally erected and placed in front of the Kuan Yin wall and reunited with the temple guardians Wei To and Jia Lan who each stand on either side of the Kuan Yin statue and the Kuan Yin wall. This happened just in time for the Amitabha blessing ceremony and the New Year's Eve celebrations later at the school. At the time of consecration, there were many disciples in attendance as well as local media and reporters.

If one takes a stroll through the neighborhood in Union City where the Purple Lotus Buddhist School is located, one will see many neat, low level stucco homes in this mainly Mexican American, blue collar community. Tucked away in a corner of this quiet community is a beautiful pure land, where stands the majestic forms of the protectors. Between them, presiding over the inner courtyard of the school where children ---bodhisattvas in training--- laugh and play and commute between classes, the One Who looks at the World with Compassionate Eyes, gazes over the Purple Lotus Pure Land with a serene and benevolent expression. It seems like the ultimate expression of compassion and wisdom, containing true knowledge behind the subtle workings of karmic causes and conditions behind all events in this world of samsara.

Om Mani Padme Hum