Life Exploration of Malaysian Painter—Shih, Jyue-Nian
【Painting Life Hopes with Love．Cross-National Life Education】
 

Cross-National Buddhism Studying and Love Sharing
    The present temple supervisor of Fo Guang Shan Ling Shan Temple, Shih Jyue-nian, with the given name of Wong Sew-chen, was born in Perak, Malaysia (on the 2016 list of Lonely Planet’s Best in Asia) on April, 29, 1961. Master Hsing Yun went to Malaysia to propagandize the Buddhist teachings on September 7, 1983, which encouraged the trend of studying Buddhism in Malaysia. Deeply touched by Master Hsing Yun’s cross-national propaganda of Humanistic Buddhism, Master Jyue Nian started to read Humanistic Buddhism Reader, published by Fo Guang Shan and sowed the seeds of the exploration of Humanistic Buddhism.
    Master Jyue Nian has followed Master Hsing Yun cross-nationally for thirty years. By spreading Humanistic Buddhism, she shares that each of the eighty-four thousand methods is possible. Everyone can learn freely, and there is Buddhism everywhere in life. Where there is Buddhism, there is a way to pass on the Buddhist love of life exploration.
One-Stroke Painting． Ten Thousand Hopes
    Following Master Hsing Yun, Master Jyue Nian promotes the thoughts of Humanistic Buddhism of practicing Buddhism in daily life, reading the Buddhist classics, and strengthening the educational functions of temples. She combines “life and nature,” promoting “love life, care for others, and look into the world.” By integrating all of the international and domestic resources of Fo Guang Shan Ling Shan Temple, she connects more than 500 teenage groups from 45 countries across 5 continents to explore life, get close to Buddhism, and encourage the life exploration education of Humanistic Buddhism across the countries at the same time.
     The most precious part is that by combining Master Hsing Yun’s “one-stroke calligraphy,” the essence of Humanistic Buddhism, and Buddha’s mercy and wisdom with games, Master Jyue Nian writes Team Dynamics: Life Venture in Humanistic Buddhism. She also creates “one-stroke painting” by connecting the universal nature, painting the truth and hopes in life with care and love, building good relationship and comforting the hurt hearts through painting.
    Therefore, Master Jyue Nian paints hopes with love as painting is the way to make tens of millions of friends and help tens of millions of people. She also engages in life education across the countries, leads the public with mercy, and soothes and calms people’s hearts through painting. “The life explorer and painter” stood out from the 2893 recommended candidates and won “The 24th Global Fervent Love of Lives Awards” given by Chou Ta-Kuan Cultural & Educational Foundation in 2021.
Seeking Roots and Origins． Passing on Chinese Culture
    Master Jyue Nian’s father, Wong Chun-sing, was a Confucian physician in Qingyuan, Guandong, China. He was famous as a Chinese doctor from a scholarly family, practicing medicine to help the world and admired by the public. However, regarded as a thorn in the eyes of the Japanese army during Anti-Japanese Eight-Year War and World War II, he was forcefully transferred to build the 415-km Death Railway on Myanmar-Thailand Border.
    Her father cured the diseases of the captives in the same boat and was lucky to escape to Ipol, Malaysia, with the assistance of many grateful captives. He became a tin miner and got married with the overseas Chinese in Malaysia, Ms. Chen Cai-feng. They had six children, and Master Jyue Nian was the second. Her father taught the children Chinese, calligraphy, and Chinese medicine, often reminding the children to seek roots and pass on Chinese culture before his death.
Losing Father． Having Doubts about Life
    In 1973, Master Jyue Nian graduated from elementary school at the first place. After her father died of an illness, to support her family and make her siblings go to school, she shouldered the responsibility of doing household chores and grew the oil palm trees in the primitive forest with her mother to share the economic burden of the family. Since she was eight, Master Jyue Nian has had doubts about life and felt lost about the future of life. At a loss, she kept searching the answer.
Cross-National Studying．Exploring the Unknown
    On September 7, 1983, Master Hsing Yun propagandized the Buddhist teaching in Malaysia. It sowed the seeds in Master Jyue Nian, who made a wish to seek the saplings of the truth of life in Taiwan. She prayed to Guanyin day and night and held the strong belief that the answer to life is in Taiwan.
     On October 25, 1987, she fulfilled her wish to come to Fu Shan Buddhist College in Taiwan and start her life exploration journey to seek answers.
    On August 23, 1989, Master Jyue Nian finally got the first diploma from the Buddhist College with honors. Next year, she entered Fo Guang Shan Tsung Lin University for further study. Under the influence of Master Hsing Yun’s Humanistic Buddhist thoughts, she gradually solved the doubts in life and found the true meaning. In 1991, she decided to have her head shaved and become a nun to follow Master Hsing Yun, swearing to serve the public and contribute to the society.
Cross-National Life Education
    Master Hsing Yun said, “Where there is Buddhism, there is a way.”
    In 1995, Master Jyue Nian started to serve at Fo Guang Shan Lin Shan Temple in Toucheng, Yilan, demanded by her master. She realized Master Hsing Yun’s teachings of “life and nature”: “Buddha was born under the Aoska tree. Sitting under a bodhi tree, he awakened to the Way and attained supreme enlightenment; He entered nirvana under the sal tree. Witnessing the bright stars in nature, Buddha realized the true meaning of life and achieved perfection of the Buddhist way.”
    Therefore, Master Jyue Nian combined Buddhism and nature and designed a series of life exploration experience courses, leading the global believers and social public including more than 500 teenage groups from 45 countries across 5 continents to explore life, converse with nature, and understand the borderless universe, the meanings of life, and the application of Buddhist teachings.
    In the past 25 years, she has made the landscape the classroom and made use of the spirit of Humanistic Buddhism’s three acts of goodness, four givings, and five harmonies to make Buddhism closer to life and life closer to Buddhism at Fo Guang Shan Ling Shan Temple.
     Based on the spiritual concept of Master Hsing Yun’s “One-Stroke Calligraphy” and “Humanistic Buddhism Holding True to the Original Intent of Buddha,” she writes the vivid teaching project to show the Buddhist, humanistic, purifying, and good perspectives. She aims to guide children, teenagers, young people, and social public to understand, reflect on, and refine themselves through games, make explorations, and practice the true meaning of life. All these will be transformed into the personal nutrients and mental food to put into practice the grand view of life that helps ourselves and others, turns over a new leaf in life, and innovates the limitless brightness and prospect. Everyone will join hands to achieve the inner joy, family happiness, mutual respect, social harmony, and world peace, bringing the more beautiful twilight to the human world.
Passing on the Love of Life Exploration Education
    Besides leading the global believers and social public including more than 500 teenage groups from 45 countries across 5 continents to experience the life exploration education, she was invited to Fo Guang Shan Dong Zen Temple and Hsing Ma Temple to give classes at Buddhist Society Youth Leadership Camp for high school students, organized by Ministry of Education, Malaysia, from 2006 to 2019. She also shared “Humanistic Buddhism Life Exploration Education” with young people and believers in many places of Malaysia.
    In 2018, she was invited to Fo Guang Shan France and Fo Guang Shan Sweden in Europe to hold the Humanistic Buddhism Life Exploration Education Experience Camp for the teenagers, children, and children scouts.
    Based on the origin principal, intelligence, and flexibility, Master Jyue Nian combines the PA experience model to lead the participants to recall their past experience and connect with life, think about the value and true meaning of life, have a deeper understanding about themselves, and cherish what they have owned in life. She also shares the truth, goodness, and beauty in life, the co-prosperity with nature, the ways to deal with people, and the importance of personal life team.
    The participants are led to find the problems in life, face them, understand them, and solve them. The trouble is Bodhi, the supreme wisdom. By making personal breakthroughs, people will learn to grow up in life and realize the true meaning of commandment, meditation, and wisdom in life through IQ, EQ, AQ, and CQ. Through the three acts of goodness and four givings, we will enhance the relationship with others and through respect and tolerance appreciate the beauty of defects in life.
Painting Life Hopes with Love．Exploring Life through the Thinking of Games and Stories
    By following Master Hsing Yun’s spirit of “one-stroke calligraphy,” Master Jyue Nian paints the hopes in life through “one-stroke painting,” making friends and helping people through painting.
     Her painting volume, Life Exploration Mental Painting ABC: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, presents the process from the beginning of life (creatures) to symbiosis, from the prosperity in spring (time and space) to the heart, and from nature (symbiosis) to the heritage of truth, goodness, and beauty.
    By combining Fo Guang Shan Master Hsing Yun’s three acts of goodness, four givings, and five harmonies and the life heritage of truth, goodness, and beauty, she paints works in Life Exploration: Hundred Flowers Angel & Flower Language of Life 108 and Life Exploration: Vegetable and Fruit Babies & Life Fruit 108.
    She also completes the first book in the Buddhist circle and exploration field, Team Dynamics: Life Venture in Humanistic Buddhism, so that the children, teenagers, young people, and people at all ages will be guided to experience the life exploration education and the modern new fable Life Exploration Educational Stories 101 to explore the true meaning of life through stories on social culture, ecology, and technology.
    The most precious part is to help the Internet addicts and those with mental illnesses. Master Jyue Nian, regardless her physical discomfort, has painted more than hundred “mental paintings” from the beginning of life to symbiosis and from the prosperity of spring to the depths of heart.

Ａ-1  The Beginning of Life

Strive for the precious chance of birth.

After the arduous adventure, a man is born.

After the arduous adventure, a man is born.

The Beginning of Life～The Image of a Mother. A life is the combination of a man’s sperm and a woman’s egg. It is an arduous and precious process to form the life of a person. From the medical angle, after the consummation of a man and a woman in puberty and adulthood, a life is conceived. It is similar to a blind sea turtle swimming up from the bottom of sea. There is a drift wood with a hole on the sea. The chance for the sea turtle to precisely enter the hole is little. A life is born with the devotion of the great mother’s life and achieved with many causes and origins. Therefore, we have to cherish it.

Ａ-26　Symbiosis

Live in truth, goodness, and beauty together.

The Buddhist teachings are spread all over the five continents.

Let’s live and prosper together and love the earth.

If the world is full of truth, goodness, and beauty, the mutual slaughter between lives on earth will reduce and the symbiosis and co-prosperity between people will be enhanced. With more respect and tolerance, the society will be more harmonious. With more mutual cooperation and trust internationally, the symbiosis and co-prosperity will be achieved. Let the lives on the beautiful mother “earth” understand the meaning of symbiosis and further live a prosperous life together. With fewer disasters and calamities, the great mother “earth” will be sustainable. The awakening spring will run forever, and all partings and bitters in life will be soothed.

B-1　Prosperity of Spring

Spring is the best in four seasons.

On the mother earth, life energy is full of prosperity.

Life energy fully prospers in spring, the most important season in a year. The mother earth brings our life the necessary resources and energy to nourish all creatures. No one can exist without the earth. With nature, life will go on. Therefore, spring stands for the energy and fountain of the hopes in life.

B-34 The Depth of Heart

In the lotus world, every bead is connected.

A flower is a world. A leaf is a Buddha.

The treasure in the world of heart is the endless splendor and richness. Like a skillful painter, a brush can paint the splendid world. The speed of thought is faster than that of light, surpassing time and space without any block and including the past, the present, and the future. It is the same as the cause and origin. A cause has an origin. An origin has a cause. They are interconnected. One flower is a world. Mount Sumeru can contain a mustard seed, yet that same mustard seed can conceal Mount Sumeru. The connected beads are like a bead with the reflections in the mirrors of four directions creating the endless lotus world.

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