In memoriam:
Luangpu Wiriyang Sirintharo
Jan 7, 1920 ~ Dec 22, 2020
(Age 100 years 11 months)
Luangpu Wiriyang, Lord Abbot of Wat Dhammamongkol Temple (Bangkok) and Patriarch of the Dhammayutttika Order in Canada, was born Wiriyang Buncheekul on January 7, 1919, in Saraburi. His parents subsequently moved the family comprising young Wiriyang and his six siblings to Nakhon Ratchasima where his father was the manager of the train station.
When he was young, Luangpu Wiriyang worked so hard to support his family that he collapsed and could not get off his bed. “Luckily, I had learned some meditation before I became severely ill so I could keep my spirits up,” he recounted to his devotees who had gathered on his centenary on January 7 2020. He said that he had pledged to help the world if he recovered from the illness as he thought that would be the best way to help other people, and he did so throughout his lifetime by teaching meditation and establishing meditation centres. After his recovery, he entered monkhood as a novice in 1932 at the age of 13 and was fully ordained in May 1941 at the age of 21 in Chanthaburi.
During World War II, his first khruba ajaan, Luangpu Kongma, one of Luangpu Mun's senior disciples, took him on a three-month thudong trip from Chanthaburi province in the eastern part of Thailand to Sakon Nakhon province in the Northeast (Isan) to seek Luangpu Mun, who had returned to Isan from the north where he had practised to reach his spiritual goal. After spending four years with Luangpu Mun, Luangpu Wiriyang helped transcribe and subsequently published a collection of Luangpu Mun’s oral teachings called “Muttothai.”
Luangpu Wiriyang was also tasked to travel to Bangkok in order to spread the meditation practice in the capital and so in the early 1960s, Luangpu took up residence on a swampy piece of ground on the outskirts of Bangkok, where he eventually founded Wat Dhammamongkol that was completed by his many supporters in 1985. Since then, this temple project, which includes the tallest stupa in Thailand, has expanded to more than 25 acres of beautiful gardens, classrooms, dormitories, and meditation facilities. Wat Dhammamongkol is currently home to approximately 500 monks whom Luangpu Viriyang oversees as the Lord Abbot.
From 1986 to 1991, Luangpu Wiriyang resided at Kamphaeng Saen Monks College, Namtok Mae Klang branch, Chiang Mai, in the woods to reflect what he had learned. He wrote a book on meditation to be used in teaching it. In the five years waiting for the book to be published, Luangpu Wiriyang built the first institute of meditation under the name Willpower Institute in 1999 and launched a meditation course in 2000.
Luangpu Wiriyang’s close affiliation with Canada began in 1991 when he had a vision that a huge jade boulder would be found submerged in the water; he envisioned that such an enormous gemstone could indeed be found and carved into a statue of the Meditating Buddha.
Following the discovery of a 32-ton block of jade in a riverbed in British Columbia, Canada, Luangpu Wiriyang raised the funds needed to purchase and have it carved into the largest jade Buddha statue on earth, as well as sculpting a somewhat smaller jade statue of the bodhisattva Guanyin, also known as the “Goddess of Mercy”. Both grand statues are currently located in Wat Dhammamongkol in Bangkok; and as Luangpu Wiriyang says: “The true value of the Buddha image is to remind us of the Buddha’s teachings” (i.e. the Dhamma).
In his lifetime, Luangpu Wiriyang continued to found meditation monasteries and centres across Canada. The first Thai Theravada Buddhist temple, Yannaviriya 1, was founded in Vancouver in 1992; the second temple, Yannaviriya 2, was introduced in Toronto in 1993; the third, the Dhammaviriya 1, was established in Ottawa in 1995. There are currently six Theravada Buddhist temples in Canada where meditation courses are available: in Edmonton, Vancouver, Calgary, Niagara Falls, Richmond Hill, Toronto and Ottawa.
~~~~~~~~~
From various sources, including
https://www.nationthailand.com/premium/30381841
More about Luangpu Wiriyang's vision of the Jade Buddha at
http://www.buddhanet.net/wat_m4.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment