Bodhi Stand presents

Upasika Ch'en Kuan Man

Upasika Ch'en, now over eighty, recently visited Gold Mountain Monastery to pay her respects to the Venerable Abbot Hua. Upasika Ch'en has supported the Dharma for many decades and in remembering some special causes and conditions in which Upasika Ch'en offered her support of the Triple Jewel, the Venerable Master has composed the following account to set forth those events:

"When I was in China in Canton in the District of Chu Hung Ma Ba at Pao Lin Mountain, Nan Hua Monastery, was the first occasion upon which I met Upasika Chen. At that time Upasika Hsien Kuan Hui from Canton had informed over ten other laypersons (that there were a lot of left-home people at Nan Hua Monastery and they didn't have enough clothes to wear) and they went together and purchased several bolts of cloth. Upasika Ch'en was one of the donors and it was on that occasion that she first was introduced to me.

"Later, in Canton, at Liu Jung Monastery we met again. (In the meantime I had gone to Hong Kong and then returned to Canton with the plan of going on to Yun Men after the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month to rejoin Venerable Master Hsu Yun. But then Hsiao Kuan was occupied and I had no way to return.) At that time I was very poor. It was dangerous day and night in Canton and so I wished to return to Hong Kong, but I had no money. (So I went to the train station with the desire to go to Hong Kong, but no money for the passage. I was accompanied by my disciple Kuo Yi).

"That day Upasika Ch'en was also returning to Hong Kong. (When she saw us at the train station and found out we wanted to return to Hong Kong,) she bought tickets for Kuo Yi and me.

"I stayed in Hong Kong more than ten years and then I came to America to propagate the Dharma. Now she has also moved to San Francisco and a few months ago she came to Gold Mountain Monastery. This is a little of my impressions from the past which I have set down in commemoration of those events.