Living Buddha works to promote charitable attitude

By Yan Shuang Source:Global Times Published: 2013-3-15 20:43:00

 

Living Buddha Gyatso  Photo: Li Hao/GT
Living Buddha Gyatso Photo: Li Hao/GT

After a morning conference with the local chief political advisor on Tuesday, Gyatso took a flight to Chengdu to meet one of his followers to share Buddhist sutras. Then he hurried to Beijing, where he gave a lecture to roughly 300 people, some of whom had come all the way from the Tibet Autonomous Region.

This has become an average day for Gyatso, 33, since he started doing charity work in 1998, one year after he became a living Buddha in the Traka Monastery of Ganzi, a Tibetan-inhabited prefecture of Sichuan. In 2011, he founded the charity Mercy Fund to provide aid to poverty-stricken areas in China with funding for children's education, health care and cultural development. He now boasts 2 million followers on Weibo, China's Twitter-like service, and posts about Buddhist dharma and charitable campaigns. Gyatso is well known for participating in relief efforts following major catastrophes and accidents, including the SARS outbreak and several earthquakes.

 "Charity with Chinese characteristics has a connection with Buddhism, which requires bodhicitta, meaning the enlightenment-mind for the benefit of all sentient beings," he told the Global Times in an interview following his two-hour lecture at a Beijing university Wednesday. "But China is currently not doing very well in doing charity through religion."

Probing the generous heart

Buddhism emphasizes self-cultivation through religious doctrines, but caring for larger groups of people requires a big heart, he explained.

The biggest obstacle to charity work in China, he said, is mistrust. Thanks to scandals involving charity organizations like the Red Cross Society of China, many citizens do not trust these entities and are donating less.

 "People shouldn't be so extreme as to think the bad overshadows the good," he said, adding that Chinese people are naturally generous but are now scared.

"Some people don't understand me either. They say I, a monk, should be inside a monastery chanting sutras instead of going around doing charity work," he told the Global Times.

A national guideline encouraging religious groups to practice charity works has boosted Gyatso's spirits. Six national departments, including the State Administration for Religious Affairs and the Civil Affairs Ministry, said in February last year that religious groups can enjoy tax breaks if they engage in charitable activities.

Playing the role

Ever since his first stint as a volunteer, doing relief work following a flood in Hubei Province in 1998, Gyatso has devoted most of his time to education, senior care, and environmental protection.

He has set up dozens of "hope schools" in the Tibetan-inhabited areas of Qinghai, Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, and offers financial assistance to teachers. In 2011 he jointly founded a number of charitable programs to help people with disabilities, donating wheelchairs to seniors in Gansu, Ningxia and Xinjiang, and raising money for a boy with leukemia in Hubei.

Despite his humble service, Gyatso is known as a "celebrity monk." A number of his over 2 million Weibo followers are well-known celebrities, entrepreneurs, or cultural experts with whom he frequently interacts online.

When an earthquake hit Yingjiang, Yunnan Province, in March 2011, Gyatso, together with TV presenter Xie Na, launched a campaign to provide 2,500 school bags and school supplies to the students whose schools reopened after the quake. His posts are frequently reposted by big names such as Li Kaifu, former president of Google China, and Wang Fei, a renowned singer.

"I don't like when people say celebrities do charity work purely as a way to win popularity," he said. "I have countless celebrity friends who are true believers in Buddhism and really have a charitable heart. And after all, charity does need publicity."

Humility and service

While charitable works have dominated his identity as a spiritual leader, Gyatso says he doesn't want to put much emphasis on Buddhism itself in order to promote generosity worldwide among people with different religious beliefs.

"People with good religious beliefs can feel connected because they all pursue truth and love," he said.

Born in a small village in Ganzi, he became a monk at the age of 13 at the well-known Serthar Buddhist Institute in northeastern Ganzi. He was appointed a living Buddha when he was 17, and has since been regarded as the reincarnated monk of a late, respected living Buddha.

"I was average back then, and didn't expect one day I'd turn from an ordinary monk into a living Buddha," he said. The young Gyatso then began taking on the tasks of his new role, helping residents solve problems and sometimes serving as a mediator when they had complaints and conflicts.

"People say it's better to teach a man to fish than to give him one. I say it's better to offer real help to people in need so that someday they can become the ones who offer help," he said.

Although he studied Chinese literature in college and went on to earn a master's degree in philosophy at Peking University in 2009, he does not see himself as a learned monk.

"Compared to respected scholarly monks who spent their lifetime studying, I've got a lot to learn," he said.

In addition to reading books, he finds inspiration in his idols Mother Teresa and Gandhi, and said he wishes to someday be as cool as the character Paul from his favorite movie, Kung Fu Panda.

"As a living Buddha who promotes charity, it's necessary to step out of the previous stereotypical way of individual cultivation and embrace a larger platform internationally and see how others see and judge you," he said, adding that he plans on taking an English course to better communicate with foreigners. He is now planning on a visit to the University of London for a lecture.

Gyatso travels abroad once a month as a visiting scholar or lecturer, or as part of a charity campaign, but the hustle and bustle of big cities will always be less appealing to him than a peaceful day spent with students at the hope schools he has established. He is also a member of the provincial political advisory body, where he submits proposals on the administration of Tibetan-inhabited Sichuan areas and how to handle issues involving ethnic minorities. In some way, he will always prefer his roots to the lure of the outside world.

"Los Angeles makes me feel lonely," said Gyatso. "Even though I could be a frequent face on TV, rub shoulders with celebrities and meet important people, home is still the best place as it puts my heart at ease."



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