After that Heng Gwei Shi and I went to Malaysia, and Heng Yun Shi returned to Taiwan. When we were in Malaysia a young woman came to  speak with us. She wanted to come to our school as a volunteer teacher, and she's not a teacher. She explained that she had been studying the Southern Tradition of Buddhism for a while now. As she was speaking, suddenly she said, "I wanted to tell you why it is that I would like to go to the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas as a volunteer teacher."

Then she told us about her dream in which she saw Shi Fu. She said that in her dream everywhere was dark, and there were these dark figures. She couldn't distinguish them, and they were beckoning to her to come and join them. She  felt they were not proper, so she went off in a different direction. Then she saw more people, and she began to distinguish their shapes. They were all in a circle, leaning over a light. When she looked closer to see where the light was coming from, she saw Shi Fu sitting there. She said he was the only bright thing in the world and that he was shining and smiling at her. When she was telling me her dream she cried. She said, "You know, I've never met the Venerable Master, but when I had this dream, I knew the meaning was that I had to go to the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas." So the Master is still responding to people's conditions all over the world. That was in Malaysia.

I forgot to mention that Heng Yi Shi from Hong Kong came with us to  Malaysia. Before we left Hong Kong she was fretting about whether she should  go or not, because she's very responsible and she didn't feel comfortable about leaving the Way-place in Hong Kong. So she thought back and forth, "Should I go? Should I not go? Should I go? Should I not go?" Finally she decided to  come with us to Malaysia. When we were in the airport leaving Hong Kong she said she saw Shi Fu. And in one of the hangars where we were supposed to get  on our plane she said, "Oh, when I saw Shi Fu I realized that I had made the right  choice, and that after all it was right for me to go to Malaysia."

Heng Yi Shi often tells her story about how right after she left the home  life, Shi Fu left her alone in Hong Kong and came to America, and for ten  years she didn't see him. We all have our complaints. Some of us say,  "Well, Shi Fu left before I left home, etc." But actually Shi Fu takes care of  all of us according to our conditions.

Probably most of you know that Malaysia is very close to the equator, so  there aren't different seasons of summer, winter, fall, or spring. There's only HOT three hundred and sixty-five days a year, so it was hot there. We  were bowing the Emperor Liang's Jeweled Repentance Ceremony in a very  small temple in the middle of Kuala Lumpur. Being a very old temple, it  doesn't have air conditioning or fans, and in fact it's very small. The reason  we were doing this ceremony is because this is our temple and they're about to renovate it. It's a historical site because it's one of the original temples in  that city and it's really falling apart. There are parts of it that don't have a  roof and some people had to bow in those parts because there just wasn't  enough room. There were people all over the temple, in every nook and  cranny, all bowing the Emperor Liang's Jeweled Repentance Ceremony for  seven days.

Even though it was hot, people were very vigorous in their bowing. For  example, Heng Yi Shi, whom I just talked about, bowed every single bow.  She's in her mid-seventies now. We're going to be bowing the Ten Thousand Buddhas Repentance here next month, and I hope we can be as vigorous as  those people were at the Emperor Liang's Jeweled Repentance in Malaysia.

After Malaysia we were invited to Singapore because they have a new  Buddhist books distribution center there. It's a very small place, but it's a  very good beginning. Shi Fu's disciples there are also very vigorous and  dedicated, and they do things very much in accord with DRBA. They said that they hope in the future some left-home people will go there to live. We  were only there for about one day.

Then we went to Australia where we also have a new Way-place. The Way- place in Australia is on about twenty-seven acres of land on the Gold Coast. As  you probably know, Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere below Malaysia  and Singapore. The Gold Coast is on the east coast of Australia, in about the  center of the continent. It's called the Gold Coast because the weather there is  so fine, and the environment is so pure and so fine that people consider it  extremely valuable. All over Australia people like to go there to vacation, and people go there to surf because there are big waves, clean water, and clean air.  It's a very beautiful place. And our Way-place is about fifteen minutes from the coast, directly west of the city of Gold Coast.

The two laypeople who were the most instrumental in establishing this  Way-place for DRBA are from Malaysia originally. Peter Nai is a very old  disciple of Shi Fu, and in fact he was here for our Opening the Light  Ceremony of CTTB. He came to help fix things in preparation for the  ceremony, and he's very handy. For example, he made the altar for the  Buddha Hall, as well as all of the bowing cushions, and many other things.

It's a very nice place. Right now they already have two buildings with a  new Buddha hall in one of them, a dining hall, and bedrooms for left-home  and laypeople. There's another building which is like a lecture hall, and  they're now in the process of raising two more buildings. The frames were up already when we were there. There's a reception center and a library in  one of the buildings, and another dormitory with six rooms.

To be continued