Natural Resources & Environmental Sustainability Oct. 15th 2020
Kevin Arsenault enters race for leadership of P.E.I.'s PC party
Says Islanders need to 'confront and solve' social, economic and environmental issues
Kevin Arsenault kicked off his leadership bid Wednesday night.
"People say ethics and politics don't mix. I say it's time they started," Arsenault told the crowd of about 70 people at Charlottetown's Murchison Centre. "Government should belong to the people. I'm going to do a whole lot to make that happen."
Arsenault, 60, has served in leadership roles in agriculture and immigration as executive director of both the National Farmers Union and the P.E.I. Association for Newcomers to Canada. He holds a PhD from McGill University and has taught ethics and religious studies at UPEI.
"People know me because of my writing and research and, I guess, my tenacity," said Arsenault.
During his 40-minute speech, Arsenault attacked the Liberal government's record, especially in immigration and agricultural policy, calling the government's actions "corrupt."
"I overestimated the degree of ethics that were in government," Arsenault told the crowd at one point, to loud applause.
"Lock 'em up!" shouted a man in the crowd. The remark drew scattered laughter.
If chosen leader and then elected premier, Arsenault will "put an end to the persistent corruption and self-serving scandals that have made P.E.I. a national embarrassment under the Liberals during the past decade," according to a written statement provided before Wednesday's meeting.
Arsenault's speech focused on ethics in government. (Brian Higgins/CBC)
Since leaving the Newcomers Association in 2010, Arsenault has worked as an organic market gardener, consultant and as a self-described independent investigative reporter. During his speech, he read from his own writings and referred listeners to his website for more.
Arsenault told the crowd he feels good about running for leadership of the PCs, win or lose.
"They say a clear conscience is the best pillow," said Arsenault. "I'll sleep well knowing I tried."
Four other candidates — Allan Dale, Shawn Driscoll, Dennis King and Sarah Stewart-Clark — previously announced their leadership bids.
Current PC leader James Aylward will remain in his role until a new leader is chosen at the leadership convention Feb. 9 at the Eastlink Centre in Charlottetown.
Land ownership questions draw a big crowd in Kings County
Buddhist monks say they are not 'using shell companies to buy up land' in Eastern P.E.I.
A grassroots land-protection group is calling on the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission to investigate the ownership of land in the Kings County area of Prince Edward Island.
More than 200 people attended a public forum in Montague on Saturday, organized by the Coalition for the Protection of P.E.I. Lands.
"This is a big issue within Three Rivers," said Shane MacDonald, one of the speakers at the meeting. "A lot of people have been waking up to the actual mass of purchases of large corporations in the Three Rivers area or even just Eastern P.E.I."
The meeting focused mainly on land owned by two Buddhist monasteries in Kings County, as well as land owned by corporations or individuals that coalition organizers believe to be affiliated with the Buddhist movement on P.E.I.
The coalition has concerns over what it sees as a concentration of land ownership, and the impact of rising land prices on the local community.
"Multiple properties being sold and resold to non-residents is giving us massive inflation," MacDonald told CBC News on Monday. "There's evidence to see that a lot was sold a year ago for $20,000 and then sold for $100,000 a year after that. That's a massive increase."
'People are generally concerned about the future of the land,' says Shane MacDonald. (Brian Higgins/CBC)
He added: "People are generally concerned about the future of the land and how future generations are going to be able to purchase land."
Limits on land accumulation
Coalition organizers say people and corporations they believe to be associated with the Buddhist community in Kings County are conducting real estate transactions that, in the view of the coalition, contravene the spirit — if not the letter — of Prince Edward Island's Lands Protection Act.
The Lands Protection Act places limits on the amount of land that can be owned by any single person or corporation. A person can't have more than 1,000 acres, and a corporation can't exceed 3,000 acres in total.
The coalition says real estate transactions involving 15,500 acres of land in Kings County can be traced back to an entity or entities with the name "Bliss and Wisdom."
The coalition claims to have examined the ownership details given for some of the entities and found that names of owners and directors of various entities overlap in some cases. That leads the coalition to speculate that the organizations are linked. CBC has not independently verified those claims.
The data examined was gathered from "Canada tax, GeoLinc and ... two or three other organizations," according to Douglas Campbell, district director of the National Farmers Union.
Douglas Campbell, photographed in 2017, was one of the speakers at Saturday's meeting in Montague. (Steve Bruce/CBC)
"On government's part, there's been a blind eye turned to what is going on," Campbell told CBC News.
The coalition has also complained that crop land they believe to be affiliated with the Buddhist community is not being farmed, and instead left fallow.
Social media contains misinformation, say monks
A spokesman for Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society monks living communally in Kings County say the monks are dismayed and alarmed by what they say is rumour and misinformation.
"It's not true that they are using shell companies to buy up land in Kings County," said Xing Chang, a monk who identifies himself in English as Venerable Dan.
"Some people have solidified a conclusion about us... There's clearly a disconnect."
Venerable Dan, photographed in June 2022 for a story about the monks'
efforts to end food poverty on Prince Edward Island, (Thinh Nguyen/CBC)
Venerable Dan says the Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society (GEBIS) owns about 575 acres of land. A separate group based in Brudenell, the Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute nuns, owns 663 acres of land, a spokeswoman told Saltwire News on March 21.
The GEBIS monks are completing construction on a large multi-purpose building in Heatherdale that will become the society's main campus in Kings County, including residential facilities.
Venerable Dan says the monks employ organic agricultural methods on their cropland, and are unaware of any of their acreage that has been left fallow. Some of their land is loaned out "for free" to other organic farmers in Kings County, he said.
The monks say "Bliss and Wisdom" is a name used by several non-profit organizations, but there is no formal connection among them. They compare the use of the phrase "Bliss and Wisdom" to the common use of the word "Island" in the names of various independent businesses on P.E.I.
A
new multi-purpose building in Heatherdale will become the main campus
for worship and study by monks of the Great Enlightenment Buddhist
Institute Society (GEBIS). (Brian Higgins/CBC)
Social media posts about the issue contain misinformation, Venerable Dan said.
"The past two or three months, it seems there more people drawn into it. You keep posting stuff and people believe it."
Venerable Dan says the monks were aware of Saturday's meeting in Montague and chose not to attend.
Lands Act needs 'constant revision': federation
The P.E.I. Federation of Agriculture says Saturday's meeting reflects long-standing concerns over land ownership on the Island, as well as questions over the effectiveness of the Lands Protection Act when it comes to corporate aggregation.
'We see issues with land ownership [in Kings County]. We see some confusion," said Donald Killorn, executive director of the federation. "We saw un update on the Lands Protection Act recently that we hope did close some of the more prominent loopholes."
The P.E.I. Federation of Agriculture has long lobbied for better
protection for farmland, says Donald Killorn. (Shane Hennessey/CBC)
Killorn points out that he knows of "Island-born" farmers who have exceeded land ownership limits, by listing their spouses as owners of tracts of crop land.
"The act does require constant revision as people work to try and circumnavigate the law," said Killorn.
This is not about race. It's always been about the land.
— Douglas Campbell
The coalition says ethnicity is irrelevant, and in the past, accusations that questions about the monks are motivated by racism or xenophobia have diverted attention from legitimate concerns.
"This is not about race," said Campbell. "It's always been about the land."
CBC News reached out to the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission for comment on the coalition's concerns. It replied with an email saying it was aware of Saturday's meeting but nobody from the coalition had been in direct contact with the commission.
The email added that IRAC "will continue to serve its role in administering the Lands Protection Act."
P.E.I. monks say they feel 'insulted' by accusations over land holdings
Members of GEBIS and GWBI respond to comments made at lands protection meeting
HEATHERDALE, P.E.I. – P.E.I. monks say they feel insulted and uncomfortable with accusations from a Prince Edward Island organization that Buddhists are buying more land than is allowed under provincial law.
The Coalition for the Protection of P.E.I. Lands held a public meeting in Montague March 18 to examine land use in Kings County. At the meeting, the Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute (GWBI) and Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society (GEBIS) were accused of accumulating more land holdings than what is permitted under the province’s Lands Protection Act.
“We feel as though we’re being tied into the Chinese Communist Party and that we’re (being) funded and that (our existence here) is just a front, that our charity work is just a front,’’ Xing-Chang, one of the monks speaking on behalf of GEBIS, said in an interview with SaltWire Network at the monastery in Heatherdale on March 21. “The school is under attack. The whole Buddhist group is being labelled as a Chinese Communist Party front. There might be some other agenda that we are trying to address (by speaking to the media), and we’re trying our best.’’
Read more
The publicly listed landholdings of GWBI and GEBIS are far below the 3,000-acre landholding limits allowed for corporations under provincial legislation. A public search of land purchases on the IRAC website shows GWBI currently owns 448 acres while GEBIS owns 576 acres.
On March 21, Sabrina Chang, who is with GWBI said that organization owns 663 acres, while GEBIS said it now owns 577 acres.
One of the featured speakers at the coalition’s meeting, Douglas Campbell, district director for the National Farmers Union in P.E.I., claimed that organizations and individuals with Buddhist affiliations own more than 15,000 acres of land in P.E.I. but declined when asked by SaltWire Network after the meeting to provide the information that the claim is based on.
Xing-Shu, another monk SaltWire Network spoke to March 21, said the information is not true.
“It’s numbers they’ve pulled off the Internet,’’ Xing-Shu said. “On one of their (social media) posts (March 21), it said it was up to 17,000 acres so I guess we bought another 2,000 acres in the last two days.’’
Campbell also suggested other shell companies or individuals are buying up land that is then being improperly used by Buddhist organizations.
Xing-Shu said neither GWBI nor GEBIS knows how to respond to those types of accusations.
“If that is the platform for discussion there is no room for discussion here because that is an accusation right away,’’ he said. “How do we respond to that? We’ve commented publicly, we’ve told the public what we’re doing on the Island, that we’re building a monastery, that we’re farming organically.’’
Xing-Shu said GEBIS and GWBI rent some land out to other organic farmers to support small businesses.
He added that in the past six years, neither organization has bought large tracks of land.
Xing-Chang added that there are a lot of other immigrants in P.E.I. that practise Buddhism and farm, and some people seem to be lumping everyone into one group.
“Somehow their lands got tied into all of this as if we’re one big mega-corporation and that there was a plan for this to happen. It is simply not true.’’
Chang said GWBI has been more than forthcoming about its land holdings.
“We’ve appreciated the concerns about land and, thus, have welcomed questions and shared our total acreage of land holdings and usage in presentations within the local community, including the (P.E.I.) standing committee in 2020,’’ Chang said in an email to SaltWire Network on March 21. “Since then, we have not made any land purchases. We welcome open communication based on facts.’’
Just the facts
Following is information on the Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society (GEBIS):
• More than 90 per cent of the monks come from Taiwan, a democratic state off the coast of China, which China considers a breakaway province.
• In the mid-2000s, a Buddhist religious community, with global members from Taiwan to Singapore, set out to find a home to train devout followers in a monastic setting.
• They found Kings County, P.E.I., a rural place where farming and care for the land were woven into the social fabric.
• GEBIS runs two monasteries — one in Heatherdale and one in Little Sands.
• GEBIS runs an extensive training program for male monks, based on part on the Lam Rim Chen Mo, a foundational 14-century text of Tibetan Buddhism.
Dave Stewart is a reporter with SaltWire Network in Prince Edward Island. He be reached at dave.stewart@theguardian.pe.ca or on Twitter @DveStewart
Buddhists proposing new P.E.I. monastery
Public will get chance to see plans for Brudenell area on Thursday
The Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute (GWBI) will be holding a public meeting on Thursday in Brudenell to go over some ambitious plans.
In order to facilitate enrolment for its nuns, GWBI hopes to build a vast complex on its property in Brudenell.
Since 2012, the nuns have been housed in temporary quarters at a facility on the Uigg Road.
Floyd Sanderson, spokesman for GWBI, said the proposed complex would encompass 300 acres and have space for 1,400 nuns. It’s part of a 10-year, multimillion-dollar project for a multi-building complex.
The money will come from international sources.
“It depends on enrolment, construction, donation of funds in order to achieve the (planned) construction. There are many variables,’’ Sanderson said Monday.
The buildings would be constructed on the north and south side of the Brudenell Road. There would be four main clusters of buildings on the north side and two building clusters on the south side, including one dormitory.
Sanderson said the north side of the road would involve Asian construction (using Tang dynasty architecture), similar to the style used at the Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute (GEBIS-monks) location in Heatherdale.
“Included in the plans are teaching facilities, a lecture hall, temple, community walking trails which will be open to the public, a tourism area for visiting people and facilities for visiting parents. We see a lot of parents come here on these huge retreats, and there’s two ongoing right now.’’
There will also be things like gardens and greenhouses and park areas that will help cover an area of 200,000 square feet.
As for parking, Sanderson said that’s still in the permit stage, but there will be one parking lot on the south side of Brudenell Road for buses and cars.
A number of acres have also been set aside to allow GWBI an opportunity to run its own independent sewage system.
“Absolutely, both sides of the road will have a provincially-approved septic system,’’ Sanderson said.
The project has a professional project manager. Architect Rob LeBlanc and Charlottetown’s Nine Yards Studio are also involved in the planning.
“Our hope is to meet with the community and show all of our package to them and receive all of our permits in order to build and start tendering out for huge projects for local contractors.
GWBI is also dealing with the Community of Brudenell in regard to zoning and permits.
Sanderson adds there is a significant tourism component to all this, pointing out that the monks’ monasteries in Heatherdale and Little Sands annually draw 2,500 visitors during the shoulder season. Some even emigrate to P.E.I.
Thursday’s public meeting is an open house and will take place 5 to 8 p.m. at Roma at Three Rivers National Historic Site at 505 Roma Point Rd. in Montague.
The plans are available on the provincial government’s website at https://www.princeedwardisland.ca/en/information/communities-land-and-environment/construction-monastery-facility-great-wisdom-buddhist.
dave.stewart@theguardian.pe.ca
Twitter.com/DveStewart
IRAC CEO questioned about Buddhist landholdings on P.E.I.
Editor's Note:
The Guardian has spent months interviewing members of Buddhist organizations and residents of Kings County about the hundreds of Buddhist nuns and monks who now live P.E.I. The story that has emerged, which will be published in two parts this coming week, is one that involves land holdings, immigration, housing, government transparency, religious freedom and geopolitics in Asia. Watch for the first part on Monday.
CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — subject of land holdings of two Kings county Buddhist organizations was briefly raised during a standing committee meeting on Thursday.
During a meeting of the standing committee on natural resources and environmental sustainability, Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission CEO Scott MacKenzie was asked if the commission would consider a public land audit of two Buddhist organizations.
Green MLA Michele Beaton said the public lacks clarity about the issue.
“There is concerns over land holdings down in the eastern end of the province,” Beaton said.
"From the side of the individuals with the land holdings, they're also concerned and it's kind of a 'he-said-she-said.'”
Suggestions have been circulating online for years that two Buddhist organizations – the Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute (GWBI) and the Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society (GEBIS) – have accumulated more land holdings than they are permitted under the Lands Protection Act.
There is no clear evidence this has happened. Both groups own significantly less than 1,000 acres, which is far below the land size limits under the act.
But some of these concerns played into a decision made by Three Rivers Council in September to deny a permit for a proposed dormitory and campus proposed for GWBI. The organization of Buddhist nuns says it needs to construct the campus due to a lack of housing for hundreds of its members.
Buddhist nuns are currently scattered between a monastery farmhouse in Uigg, a dormitory in Brudenell, a converted lobster shanty in Montague and several individual homes.
“At what point in time does IRAC make a decision to help out individuals in a situation where the public believes that they are doing something — whether they are or not — but have an arms-length body like yourself do an investigation or an audit of some sort?" Beaton asked.
"I don't think we've ever done that. I think anyone who knows what their landholdings (are), can disclose what their landholdings are," MacKenzie said.
Three Rivers' denial of the building permit has had real consequences for GWBI.
In an interview last weekend, three board members of GWBI confirmed that about 30 students aged 14-17, enrolled at a private school run by the monastic organization, left P.E.I. in January, in part, due to the lack of housing.
“They need space," Venerable Sabrina Chiang, a GWBI board member told The Guardian.
“They're lively. They need to run around and to play.”
"I think it's the best decision for everyone," Venerable Yvonne Tsai, another GWBI board member, told The Guardian.
"Everyone wants everyone to live better. So that's why they made that decision."
Both Tsai and Chiang said they hope to work directly with IRAC to address land concerns that have been raised in the community.
MacKenzie did not directly say whether IRAC has looked into land holdings related to the Buddhist organizations.
“Have you ever done an investigation on, for instance, GEBIS or GWBI, on their landholdings?" Beaton asked MacKenzie.
"I can neither confirm nor deny. We will not talk about any possible investigations that may have or may not have happened,” MacKenzie said.
Stu Neatby is The Guardian's political reporter.
Greens say 'little or no oversight' of children at private P.E.I. Buddhist school
CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — The Opposition Greens used International Children’s Day to question the province about the oversight of the Buddhist Moonlight International Academy.
During question period on Wednesday, Green Opposition Leader Peter Bevan-Baker and Opposition house leader Hannah Bell asked several ministers how they would ensure the rights of children would be safeguarded for students of the Buddhist school.
The Moonlight International Academy is affiliated with the Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society or GEBIS. It is one of five private schools on Prince Edward Island. Two of the other private institutions are Christian schools.
Bevan-Baker first directed his questions to Justice and Public Safety Minister Bloyce Thompson.
"How is government fulfilling its duty to protect children, as defined by the UN Conventions on the Rights of a Child, in private, residential-type school settings like the Moonlight International Academy?” Bevan-Baker asked.
Thompson said he would look into the question and bring an answer back to the house.
"We will continue to work with our departments and the family lawyer, Mr. Speaker, the child lawyer to continue to get these answers for you," Thompson said.
Bell then directed her question to Social Development and Housing Minister Ernie Hudson.
Bell asked how Hudson’s department would respond if a child decided he or she no longer wanted to be a monk. She also asked if children at the academy had access to visits with their family.
In response, Hudson said he agreed the rights of children had to be at the centre of decisions from his department. He said he would look into the matter and report back to the house.
"They are literally thousands of miles away from their families. There is very little, or perhaps, no oversight of what's happening there."
-Green Opposition Leader Peter Bevan-Baker
In response to another question from Green education critic Karla Bernard, Education Minister Brad Trivers said Moonlight, like other private schools in P.E.I. were regularly inspected by staff of his department.
Trivers said yearly inspections focused on fire and environmental health requirements, staff criminal record checks, child protection matters, campus safety, liability insurance requirements and educational requirements.
"The Moonlight International Academy is a licensed private school," Trivers said. "It has to follow all of the rules for licensed private schools.”
Trivers also said the school currently has 127 male students, from Grades 4-12 at the Academy’s Little Sands location and 58 female students at the Uigg location. He said Moonlight Academy has “met all the requirements” of the inspections and said he would also look into some of the questions raised by the Greens.
In an interview with The Guardian, Bevan-Baker was asked why Moonlight Academy warranted more scrutiny than the other four private schools on P.E.I. Bevan-Baker said he had suggested the Island’s new child and youth advocate examine the conditions in all private schools.
But he said there were specific things about the Moonlight Academy that should be examined.
"I think there's some specific things about that school which increase the vulnerability of the children," Bevan-Baker said.
"The first one is that the children do not go home at the end of the day. They are literally thousands of miles away from their families. There is very little, or perhaps, no oversight of what's happening there."
P.E.I. Buddhist group ‘disappointed’ about Green questions about oversight of children at academy
Monks at the Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society lead an open
house last Winter of a Monastery in Kings County. A GEBIS-affiliate
private school has been the subject of questions from the opposition
Greens this week in the legislature. - Stu NeatbyA representative of the Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society says he is disappointed with the questions raised in P.E.I.’s legislature by the opposition Greens about a private school operated by the society.
In a statement sent to The Guardian, Geoffrey Yang, executive secretary of GEBIS said the Moonlight International Academy complies with rules set out for private schools in the Island’s Private Schools Act.
“We are disappointed that questions raised in the Legislative Assembly suggest that children under our care were ‘taken’ from families; rather, they were enrolled by their families,” Yang said in the statement.
“The history and legacy of Canada’s Indian Residential School is very troubling, so the effort of the Official Opposition to draw parallels between the Moonlight International Academy and Indian Residential Schools is very concerning to us and potentially damaging to our reputation in the community.”
On Wednesday, Green opposition leader Peter Bevan-Baker and house leader Hannah Bell used the occasion of International Day of the Child to raise questions about the Moonlight Academy, a private school operated by the Buddhist society. The Greens asked several questions related to the rights of children attending the school, including whether children were aware of their rights, whether they had access to visits with their parents and what happens if they decided not to be a Monk.
"How is government fulfilling its duty to protect children, as defined by the UN Conventions on the Rights of a Child, in private, residential-type school settings like the Moonlight International Academy?” Bevan-Baker asked on Wednesday.
In an interview after the comments, Bevan-Baker said he had not heard of specific instances of ill treatment of children at the academy, but said there were “specific things about that school which increase the vulnerability of the children.”
In response to the questions, the province’s Minister of Social Development and Housing Ernie Hudson said the children attending the school were covered by the province’s Child Protection Act.
"All persons on Prince Edward Island, including teachers and staff at any school on the Island, family members, MLAs are obligated to report child abuse to authorities or to child and protection services," Hudson said.
"Children and parents of children at the Moonlight Academy are aware of their rights and have regular communication with their parents."
A separate statement was distributed by GEBIS to MLA’s on Thursday, responding to some of the questions.
In an interview on Thursday, Yang said the school has worked with officials from the Department of Education and Early Learning for years and has also worked closely with Child Protection Services.
“I understand that the Green party has chosen to use [us] as an example," Yang said, adding that the International Day of the Children is supposed to be a “celebratory” event.
“All we can say is that nothing has happened. If there is anything in the future, unfortunately, [that] does happen, then we do have the protocol set in place."
Yang said concern for the welfare of children was a value that he shared. He said GEBIS has worked hard to integrate but is sometimes viewed, after ten years, as being “from away.”
"It's human nature, you know. We look different," Yang said.
"I think it's homework. It's homework for everyone. It's both sides. Our goal is to bridge together and to make sure everybody understands each other and has a better impression of each other."
- Reply
- 1w
- Reply
- 1w
- Reply
- 1w
- Reply
- 1w
- Reply
- 1w
https://my.charitableimpact.com/charities/great-enlightenment-buddhist-institute-society
Charitable Organization
Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society
Little Sands, PE
CRA registration number:
#837671320RR0001
Program areas
Please check back laterIt looks like we haven’t yet received this information from the Canada Revenue Agency.
Revenue and expenses
2021 total revenue and expenses summary
Total revenue
$30,016,782.00
Total expenses
$7,478,852.00
Charitable activities / programs
$2,431,318.00
Management and administration
$5,047,534.00
Fundraising
$0.00
Political activities
$0.00
Other
$0.00
Gifts to other registered charities and qualified donees
$54,314.00
* Information about revenue and expenses is provided by the Canada Revenue Agency approximately once each quarter.
Are you an administrator for this charity?
By default, information on this page is sourced from the Canada Revenue Agency. To add more information to this page, claim your charity page for free.
Master Zhen-Ru
Born and raised in China’s Hei-Long Jiang province, Master Zhen-Ru was remarkable for her love for all beings, determination and ability to bring joy to all.
At a very young age, Master Zhen-Ru was in touch with her spiritual
side. She would often sit and meditate. Master Zhen-Ru’s father would
quietly watch over her and make sure that she was ok.
The pilgrimages weren’t exactly romantic or luxurious. There was usually no vegetarian options. As such, many times, she had to sustain herself on a bowl of rice and soy sauce. Sometimes, she had to sit on the cold hard cement or her shoes.
Walking on, she saw an elderly monk who was soaked to the skin and shivering. Master Zhen-Ru ran toward him and offered her umbrella. The elderly monk could not bear to take it as Master Zhen-Ru would be wet and cold. However Master Zhen-Ru would not take no for an answer. He finally accepted her offering and blessed her before walking away. Master Zhen-Ru smiled as she watched the elderly monk walking away, holding a brightly coloured umbrella with flower patterns on it. Despite having no money or umbrella, the joy on everyone’s faces from receiving an umbrella was enough to warm her heart.
Late Master Jih-Chang’s last instructions were:
1. Dialectics must be integrated with the heart and mind.
2. This group of people can not separate.
Master Zhen-Ru was the key proponent in establishing The Five Great Treatises curriculum. In 2012, the first group of GWBI nuns started learning The Five Great Treatises, creating groundbreaking history in the Chinese culture. Completing this sixteen-year curriculum is comparable to receiving a Ph.D. in Buddhist philosophy.
Three Rivers: The Sun, the Moon, and the TRUTH
In this series of articles I will reveal the truth of what is really happening with the recent influx of Buddhist Monks, Nuns, Parishioners and CASH to Eastern PEI, and how the PEI government has not only been turning a blind eye to these happenings, but has been enabling them to proceed with their long-term plans.
PREAMBLE
This past Monday evening (August 31, 2020) my brother and I travelled down to Montague to attend the Three Rivers Council meeting. It had come to my attention that council was planning to vote on a motion to approve a permit for a dormitory, which is phase II of the development in Brudenell for the Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute (nuns).
Several members of the public were given 5 minutes to address council with any concerns. It was clear from the dynamics and discussion that the motion was most likely going to pass. Some councillors – and especially the Mayor – commented that all the t’s were crossed and i’s dotted on the application, so what would be the grounds for denying the permit? The fear that someone might accuse council of being ‘racist’ if it wasn’t approved was palpable, with the meeting starting with an apology from one councillor for a comment he made at the last meeting:
“During discussion Councillor Holland said, “Not to say I won’t support it in the future but not this evening until we have a firm discussion with our Buddhist community about what we want Brudenell to look like in 50 years time. Do we want it to look like Brudenell? Or do we want it to look like downtown Hong Kong?” [See: “Councillor opposes new development at Buddhist Institute,” Eastern Graphic].
It’s unfortunate that the message “what we want Brudenell to look like in 50 years time” got overlooked.
One citizen attempted to draw attention to how all the individual decisions approving developments, permits, purchases of houses and land, etc., were all happening in isolation from one another. The former mayor of Brudenell, who was in the gallery, explained that there never was a plan or long-term vision presented by the Buddhist monks outlining their true intentions for Eastern PEI.
There are growing concerns about all the houses being purchased and left empty -all the farmland that is not being farmed. Why do monks and nuns need all those assets? Again, a comment was made by the Mayor that what council was duty-bound to address was the only issue to decide, nothing else.
At that point I addressed council to say that I had travelled to the meeting out of a sense of moral responsibility to let council know that I was in possession of very alarming information about the true plans and hidden activity of the monks and nuns. Without providing details beyond indicating that laws have been broken and covered-up, and that council would be ‘voting blind’ if the motion was passed without the benefit of knowing more about what’s really going on behind the scenes, I lobbed my warning and sat down.
After I spoke, some councillors expressed concern that the vote be postponed. Council decided to do exactly that – postpone the vote for a couple of weeks to allow members of the community to ask questions and/or express concerns to council.
A Synopsis of What’s to Come
It was not my intention to publish anything on this investigation for a few weeks. However, given the pending vote by Three Rivers Council – and the unbelievable silence and sheer irresponsibility of the provincial government, which have had all the same information that I have since last November, yet were not willing to share it with Montague councillors – I decided to go public at this time with the claims I intend to prove in subsequent articles:
- The feature graphic for this series came from the Bliss and Wisdom (the parent organization for GEBIS and GWBI) in Taiwan. It is the long-term plan: to bring between 20,000 and 30,000 laypeople to Eastern PEI. The complex (community of buildings) is estimated to cost roughly 1/2 billion.
- GEBIS (monks) and GWBI (nuns) present as separate entities, but operate as one entity. A third group (CGI) is also now on PEI, and the plan includes at least 3 more Buddhist groups to locate in Eastern PEI; all presenting as separate corporate entities, however, operating under Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society (GEBIS).
- Nuns and monks are buying property as both non-residents and permanent residents of PEI without having to go through IRAC and or obtain Executive Council approval, often hundreds of acres of farmland which they have no intention to farm. There have also been a huge number of land and home transactions (one resident told me at least 200) where many monks, nuns, laypeople each purchased 5 acres, thereby circumventing IRAC and Executive Council completely. The use of ‘bundling’ non-resident names to purchase is common.
- International Students at GEBIS and GWBI are receiving wire transfers from Taiwan and/or China and are then ‘donating’ large sums to the monastery.
- Buddhist laypeople are coming into PEI under the federal “temporary foreign worker” program as ‘volunteers’.
- Buildings and land purchased by ‘individuals’ clearly belong to the monasteries – in one instance I took a picture of a building with a sign on the door indicating it is a GWBI residence; however, the purchase was made by 5 laypeople at the direction of GWBI.
- There is very strong evidence that suggests money laundering is also happening; however, that part of the investigation is being undertaken by a federal Liberal MP and his staff with whom I’m in close contact. Money laundering is a criminal offence and falls under federal jurisdiction.
- Non-profit organizations such as Moonlight International have little or no activity or business, but seemingly have as their chief purpose purchasing land and assets.
- Land purchased by parishioners is being used by the monks and nuns as if they owned it, with no lease agreements.
- The GEBIS library is on land owned by an individual monk – adjacent to the Monastery. The GEBIS monastery is surrounded by parcels of land that’s part of the grounds of the monastery, but owned by individual monks
- When IRAC began an investigation into GEBIS and GWBI in 2015-16, there was a ‘freeze’on any further land purchases. GWBI purchased a large property in Brudenell during that time with the names of 5 parishioners (laypeople) to avoid IRAC application, which was explicitly stated as the purpose of purchasing that way…to evade IRAC.
Based on the above information, Three Rivers council should postpone a decision pending the outcome of an investigation.
Why is the Government Covering Up This Massive Scandal?
Last November, Bloyce Thompson – both our Attorney General and Minister of Agriculture and Land – spent a few hours touring Eastern PEI. During the visit and tour, he got a full briefing on what was going on with the Buddhists (see 11 items above).
The local Eastern PEI guide pointed out hundreds of lots forming huge swaths of land already owned by the monks or nuns, as well as hundreds of empty houses – properties purchased by the monasteries, individual nuns and/or monks, or family members and/or ‘parishioners’. Entire residential developments have been purchased.
At one point, standing in the kitchen of his guest with his Deputy Minister and MLA Cory Deagle, Minister Thompson held up a document he was provided confirming illegal activity and apparently blurted:, “There’s the smoking gun right there!” I’ll provide a copy of that letter in a future article.
Thompson had been informed that the Great Wisdom Institute had employed a similar strategy in British Columbia, and a plan was hatched for that individual to accompany Minister Thompson on a trip to British Columbia to investigate what happened there with the Buddhists and what measures the B.C. government had taken to deal with it. Then things went silent.
Calls to Minister Thompson were not returned, and Minister Thompson chose to keep information about this scandal secret. The following exchange between Green MLA Michele Beaton and Minister Thompson less than two months ago in the Legislative Assembly was all about that missed trip and opportunity, and Ms. Beaton with visible distress, demanded some action from the minister to protect PEI land.
Notice that Minister Thompson references “empty house tax” as a possible remedy (to a problem he didn’t mention), and says “…try to avoid that sort of situation here on the Island” but doesn’t mention what ‘situation’ he was talking about.
At no time does Bloyce mention the situation on the Island, the Buddhist monks, or what exactly he was referring to when he said “…try to avoid that sort of situation here on the Island.” No one had a clue what that exchange was really about.
For Minister Thompson to have stood in the House and not disclose what he knew was going on was bad; for him to state, “As far as I’m aware, we, there, we can’t, we don’t think there’s any hidden real estate, as far as we’re aware” is unconscionable.
His stated promise that: “We will pick this up as soon as possible, Mr. Speaker, and address this situation,” has so far been forgotten and has brought only continued silence and an extension of cover-up.
Address this situation?
This should have been the #1 priority of government the very day Mr. Thompson learned about this massive scandal last November, 2019, almost a full year ago. What a betrayal!
Not only was the situation not addressed – it was buried completely, despite the fact that there is a very well-orchestrated campaign underway by the monks and nuns to deceive Islanders and the PEI government about their true intentions and plans. A lot of things should happen next, including forced divestiture of roughly 7,000 acres of land beyond the 3,000 limit for corporations. More on the possible legal and/or legislative remedies for this situation will be explored in future articles.
The really sad thing for me to witness is the way the “poison” accusation of ‘being racist’ has allowed PEI to be taken to the cleaners by people who we welcomed openly to become a part of our society, but want little or nothing to do with us. They form non-profits and corporations that have no substantive activity or do little or no business. These corporate entities buy land under the pretense of being a separate entity when they are not. In fact, they don’t even hide that once the transactions are complete.
We’ve been taken, and the many people in Eastern PEI that I’ve spoken to are increasingly fearful of the monks, but they would never state that publicly. As will be explained in a future article in this series, there is a ‘diaspora’ happening and those fleeing Taiwan and/or China have found a little paradise in which to relocate.
What is this government going to do about it? Why didn’t Cory Deagle speak up about this situation when Minister Bloyce failed to do so? Is this the legacy Premier King intends to leave his beloved Georgetown and Eastern PEI?
This government is so incompetent and steeped in back-room corruption nothing will be done until it is forced. Nothing has been done so far, likely because lawyers, real estate agents and accountants are making a fortune while Eastern PEI is slowly being transferred, parcel by parcel, house by house, into the hands of the Buddhists.
If you recall, a previous attempt to bring GEBIS before the Standing Committee – despite the motion already having been passed – was “undermined’ by a subsequent motion introduced by former Liberal Minister Allen Roach who showed up at the next meeting for that very purpose.
He attempted to justify that cowardly move with despicable accusations that for members to bring GEBIS before the committee would be ‘racist’. Like usual, all that is required is the mention of the word to seize control of the situation, which Roach did. Now look at the mess we’re in.
I suppose Roach had his personal reasons for pulling that stunt – he had just sold his house to a member of that community for a tidy sum over three-quarters of a million.
Every citizen of Three Rivers should write to their Councillors asking that this current permit not be approved until such time as a full investigation and appropriate legal actions and resolution is found for the people of Eastern PEI who are being quietly displaced with smiles and flowers and threats of being called racist.
It wouldn’t hurt for a few non-residents to write to the government for an explanation for this sordid betrayal, and to show support for our fellow Islanders currently under siege in Eastern PEI.
https://kevinjarsenault.com/2020/11/13/episode-4-zhen-ru-master-of-bliss-and-wisdom-buddhists/
EPISODE #4: Zhenru – Master of Bliss and Wisdom Buddhists
EXPLANATORY NOTE REGARDING LITERARY STYLE
A complaint I often receive is that my articles are too long and complicated. I’ve fixed that problem. This is not a long, difficult article. It’s a tiny book.
You can read it easily in one sitting if you’re a reader. If you’re not a reader – not even a tiny book reader – try tricking yourself by thinking of the chapters as separate articles: go at it periodically and that might help.
But if you want to know more about the Buddhists in PEI – and that mysterious woman in the feature image looking lovingly over the Eastern part of our fair Isle…someone who you’ve never seen before nor heard from who happens to be the person who controls everything “Buddhist” in PEI – a global guru known as Master Zhenru, aka Mary Jin, aka Meng Rong Jin…then you’ll want to keep reading.
Lastly, she is also referred to as the “Golden Girl” by Bliss and Wisdom monks who’ve left the monastery because of what they believe to be fraudulent and scandalous actions by Master Zhenru; monks who are now dedicated to exposing her as a threat to Buddhism.
Regarding the quasi-sidebar travelogue section recounting my hitch-hiking trek across North America to visit five different Orders of contemplative and cloistered Catholic Monasteries back in 1979, I’m pretty sure you’ll be thinking the whole way through… “What in God’s name was he thinking? “
It’s impossible to take such a complex situation and make it completely clear in one article, or even one tiny book. There’s just too many connections to map out and explain. Too many players (with Chinese names Islanders see as blurs impossible to remember so we don’t even bother trying). We see “Arsenault” we look for a first name, the first name of a father or mother to locate which Arsenault family, etc…we see a “Yin” or a “Wei” and we don’t even know if it’s a first or last name and couldn’t connect the person to anyone else, even a husband or wife!
If we were shown the same Chinese name (usually three short word segments) I’d say in about 2 minutes after seeing it – without being told we were being shown the same name – most Islanders wouldn’t realize. This name issue is no small matter, not for land transactions at IRAC, nor for my investigation, especially given that many Buddhists are using multiple names, or sometimes various combinations of their English and Chinese names, effectively creating new names. There’s a good example of that with Master Zhenru that I’ll provide in the next episode.
With so much material, it’s a lot of work to keep all that information and connections together in the mind, and not at all easy to sustain one’s attention as more layers of information and connections are added. I tried to include a little more entertainment in this post to reward readers for the hard work, but please don’t think of this research as entertainment, this is serious stuff and urgent, I just prefer laughing while I work rather than crying. Think of this as homework you do grudgingly but are later pleased as punch with yourself for all you did and for what you learned.
Staying engaged and being able to sustain the many intricate elements and connections in one’s mind until it finally comes together to make sense is hard work. But we obviously can’t garner the insights and understanding that the information and those connections offer unless we put in that work. Knowledge isn’t the same as “information” – knowledge isn’t received like information, it’s “constructed” by the mind, and we’re the builders.
The only other thing I’ll say on the “difficulty factor” with the material is that the more you care, the easier the read. Why? Because of the intrinsic connection between desiring what is good with one’s heart (loving) and seeking what is true with one’s mind (knowing) – loving and knowing together reflect in our being the Imago Dei, the image of God. When these two forces unite, they’re like booster cables on a car battery – the engine starts and we finally get somewhere!
Images, or art or anything entertaining usually, can also help us to sustain our mind’s engagement with dry concepts, facts, interpretations of words, etc., so I’ve put more pictures in this article as well. Narrative is what really grabs our attention and keeps it; a good story takes us into another world and keeps us there. But therein lies the problem for me. It’s imperative that there’s no confusion between what’s being claimed as factually-true and what’s being presented as entertainment with fictional elements (with a meaningful message usually embedded as well).
Too much narrative containing lots of visual details can easily confuse the reader about what is fact or fiction, for obvious reasons. You don’t confuse the reader about what is fact and what is fiction, or what’s serious and what’s entertaining, when you go extreme rather than subtle with the narrative and humour. So I go extreme.
No one’s going to question (let’s hope not) whether Bloyce Thompson was really taking advice (or to be more accurate, “rejecting advice”) from Yoda as they conversed in the swamps of Dagobah, a forgotten planet strong with the Force, where the wizened old Jedi Master lived out his final years in hiding, out of sight of the Imperial forces. Which, come to think of it, seems like a pretty crappy and cowardly way to end a respectable career fighting the evil empire and dark lord – die alone in a swamp. But I digress.
People have warned me that if I keep putting Homer Simpson cartoons in my highly-sensitive research articles (there’s one in this one) I’ll ruin my credibility. Taken under advisement. Hmmm. What’s that saying….it’s right on the tip of my tongue.
It’s a weird but totally-effective and oft-used Island expression….ah… [I hate it when I know something like the back of my hand and draw a blank] I’m pretty sure it has something to do with not having the ability to effect the transfer of something – a “rat’s ass” if I’m not mistaken. It’s the one-liner we blurt out to people who unnecessarily worry for us and believe that the things we like to do that make us happy and who we are and life worth living need to stop. I really appreciate getting advice without first having a conversation – saves time. Forget it…can’t remember the saying. I know it’ll come to me the second I post this mini-book… and I really wanted to use that one too!
Table of Contents
PREAMBLE
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1 – The Objective and Scope of this Monkileaks Investigation
CHAPTER 2 – My Fantastic Monastic Experience & Teaching Buddhism
CHAPTER 3 – The Birth and Evolution of Bliss and Wisdom Corporation Inc.
CHAPTER 4 – Properly Situating Bliss and Wisdom within Buddhism
CHAPTER 5 – Master Zhenru: The Mysterious Leader of Bliss and Wisdom
CHAPTER 6 – Is Bliss and Wisdom a Cult? No, but…
CHAPTER 7 – GWBI’s Presentation to the Committee on Natural Resources
CONCLUSION
AFTERWARD
Preamble
This mini-book has ambitious goals. The main one is to clarify as precisely as possible what my Monklileaks investigation both aims to accomplish and will leave aside for others to investigate.
I want the information in this post to provide the reader with a good sense of what to expect regarding the focus and goals I’ve set for my investigation. Hopefully it will also give you some sense of what the substance of subsequent articles in this Monkileak series will look like. They will be much, much shorter (a few pages each) targeting very specific issues. This is the “big picture” one.
This research is not simply documenting incidents from the past, and offering an interpretation of those past events, although that is part of what my research encompasses. This project is addressing (and trying to help solve to be honest) a very complex, dynamic and problematic situation currently happening in PEI.
Although the current situation is very fluid, even volatile in some respects, as you’re likely aware since you care enough to be reading this, however that fluid appears to be frozen at the moment, or moving at little more than what might be expected from barely frozen sluggish slush. Why? Because, the entire thing is a mystery wrapped in an enigma hidden in a closet under an old blanket….or whatever saying works best for you to grasp that people are simply being kept and left in the dark about a great big mess. Time to call in the experts to make sense of what’s going on I guess.
I’m now happy to turn things over to a couple of my favourites from Sesame Street to help fill us in on the shape of things using their patented and alluring alliteration and witty and wise words about the Buddhist situation in PEI…. brought to you by the letter “M” [loved that segment on Sesame Street as a kid. I can still remember the bits after all these years: “Wanda washed her wirey wig on windy winter wednesdays…ahhh..to be a kid again]. Now, if you could kindly turn your attention to our guests to the left.
Decisions and plans involving and affecting both the Buddhists and residents of Eastern PEI need to be made soon. There’s going to be significant long-term consequences flowing from those decisions and plans one way or another, regardless of what route those decisions and plans take. When those decisions and long-term plans are finally made, and also made public, they will give us a visionary glimpse into the future of what Three Rivers community is likely to look like for the foreseeable future.
Despite what most people would identify as an urgent situation, there appears to be a surprising lull in activity and news. I suspect that’s because there’s too much secrecy and a void in place of accurate and insightful information regarding the Buddhists in PEI.
To my knowledge, there is currently no meaningful process of dialogue happening, no investigation underway, or any planned process for meetings and consultations happening. What’s needed is insightful information to spark dialogue and a meaningful process on a go-forward basis.
My articles will hopefully make at least a modest contribution to providing some new and useful information that might serve as that spark. Gaining insight into key aspects of what has been a secret transmigration from Taiwan to PEI of an international Buddhist Corporation’s global headquarters when most Islanders haven’t even heard the name of that corporation (Bliss and Wisdom Corporation Inc.) is no small challenge for one article…uh….mini-book.
In Search of the Holy Grail: Information and Answers from Gov’t
There are so many unanswered questions about the Buddhists in PEI, after all these years, for two reasons, both having a common characteristic:
(1) The government won’t tell us what it knows. Islanders have been kept in the dark about the Buddhists by the PEI government and it’s early ties to the PNP Investor program, Frank Zhou, Premier Ghiz, then Premier MacLauchlan. We have never been provided any meaningful information, beyond the original narrative about the establishment of two modest monasteries in Eastern PEI, a scenario which has long-since morphed into a far different and out-of-control situation; and
(2) the Buddhist monks and nuns won’t tell us what they know. The monks and nuns have also told us next to nothing about who they really are, their past, and why they left Taiwan to relocate their headquarters in PEI.
The lay members of Bliss and Wisdom have revealed even less. We have never even seen the Buddhist’s Master and leader in the flesh, nor have we ever had an opportunity to hear her, or ask her questions, or have her explain how she sees PEI fitting into her global network of Bliss and Wisdom Buddhist Corporations; or how she initially came to have such confidence in being able to come to PEI to complete such a mega-project stretching over so many years?
Who or what gave her that assurance? Something involving immigration, international affairs, purchase of significant property and assets, being able to bring people through the immigration system in large numbers quickly, etc. would require many legal and legislative guarantees – any single one of which that fell through could potentially thwart the entire project – any single one of which from either the provincial or federal governments. So was (is?) there some kind of an agreement we never heard about? There’s much for us to yet discover.
One would expect that Master Zhenru would have been provided assurance of receiving everything she would need to succeed before embarking on such a massive venture, relocating her global headquarters from Taiwan to PEI. Was she? Was there (is there?) a secret agreement of some kind with the provincial government stretching back to the Ghiz or MacLauchlan days that we’ve never heard about?
Getting answers to some of these key questions is clearly a prerequisite for being able to move forward and engage in honest, meaningful discussions that can, hopefully, then facilitate and move things toward a satisfactory outcome for everyone, especially residents of Eastern PEI. I suspect it’s mostly the lack of information that’s underscoring and causing the present impasse, so the information in this post should help somewhat.
Solutions are still needed, and the sooner the better. However, it appears that both the Buddhists and Three Rivers Council members are waiting for the PEI Government to step up and intervene in the matter. That’s unlikely to happen anytime soon.
The PEI Government (Hon. Bloyce Thompson) was given a full briefing on this explosive situation last November, 2019, and despite Minister Thompson making strong promises that swift and decisive action would be taken, no action has been taken. Pardon me, that’s not exactly true: action has been taken…to worsen and perpetuate the situation (some would characterize it as “aiding and abetting”).
The King Government has indeed not only chosen to remain silent on this pressing issue since last November, 2019, Minister Thompson and Executive Council have also since provided approval to a further 504 acre land-acquisition by Hopetown Corporation Inc., owned by key Buddhists. I’ll provide an insightful update on Hopetown in a subsequent article.
That Executive Council approval of the Hopetown deal was truly a cynical move! It acquiesed and totally accommodated the future Buddhist plans to transform a significant chunk of prime farmland in Eastern PEI into a residential district for Buddhist development. The residents in Eastern PEI who took the time to Brief Minister Thompson and give him a tour of all the empty houses and properties owned by Buddhists in the area must have felt like he was giving them the middle finger with that Hopetown sale.
Following that briefing and tour last November, Minister Thompson was to go to British Columbia with Finance Minister Darlene Compton to learn from the BC Government regarding how BC had recently put the brakes on out-of-control land speculation and purchases of agricultural land for development with newly-enacted legislative changes. That trip was to happen last winter, but hasn’t happened yet; which didn’t go unnoticed by Green MLA and Agriculture and Land Critic Party, Michele Beaton, last Spring during the House sitting.
I posted this same video clip of Ms. Beaton asking Bloyce Thompson to explain why his planned BC trip never happened previously. Beaton had obviously been made aware of that plan to travel to BC to get a draft land protection “solution” to apply to PEI, and she didn’t seem impressed to hear Bloyce admit nothing had been done on the issue.
Beaton, exasperated, was expecting that the BC solution would long-since been adopted and adapted to the PEI situation, and that changes to the Lands Protection Act would have been drafted by then. She pressed Thompson: he blamed Covid-19, a nearly year-long scourge that has ravished the ranks of our relatives….oh wait, wrong script, I meant: …a nearly year-long scourge that has yet to require anyone to go to the hospital.
Minister Thompson said nothing of the real problem that he and Beaton were clearly both thinking about during that intense exchange. He said there wasn’t a problem. My eyebrows went up when I heard that. They went higher with his semi-incoherent utterance about PEI having similar land concerns as BC (good start, that was true, although he didn’t spell out what those concerns were exactly, nor the significant legislative amendments and other measures that BC enacted to address them) but then things went downhill hearing him say his Government was looking at possibly putting an “empty house” tax in place. Wow!
Imagine that, a made-in-PEI solution to the abuse of the Lands Protection Act: a new revenue stream for government! Ingenious. But that certainly wasn’t the type of solution B.C. came up with and enacted to actually protect its farmland and not just discover a new way to tax people, nor would such an approach do anything to actually protect our land.
I’m sure no one watching that somewhat cryptic exchange between Beaton and Thompson had any real idea what was really going on. You can watch it again, or jump over it if you’ve already seen it, but it may look different now that you have some additional background information providing more context and meaning:
Minister Thompson’s statement: “We will pick this up as soon as possible, Mr. Speaker, and address this situation” seems to have since been forgotten.
Silence by the Government on the Buddhist situation – especially during the past two months following the Three Rivers Council decision to deny GWBI a building permit – represents, in my opinion, more evidence of a continued cover-up by the PEI government, notwithstanding the now very public and urgent situation facing the Community of Three Rivers.
Three Rivers Council members explained that the principal reason for the decision to deny the building permit was the confusion and unanswered questions over the much bigger, broader issues related to land. The Council explicitly acknowledged that the PEI Government has jurisdiction, and would need to take a leadership role to both investigate and resolve the current conundrum.
As far as I’m aware, whatever the PEI Government has been doing on the Buddhist file hasn’t involved a process of dialogue with the Buddhists that includes either the residents or councillors of Three Rivers.
After the Hopetown Corporation Inc. land purchase approval by Executive Council (with Minister Thompson defending that deal publicly), I did some further digging and ended up publishing two articles [Government approves sale of 500 Acres in Eastern PEI to Asian Land Developers; and Why is Government’s Version of the Asian Land Approval Process Different from IRAC’s?].
Each article raised a number of questions which have yet to be answered by Minister Thompson. Those issues relating to that Hopetown land purchase will be addressed in a separate episode in this Monkileaks series.
After publishing those two Hopetown articles, I received a digital “brown paper envelop” of documents. I then decided to make public the information in a series of articles; not because I needed another project on my plate, but only because this is an extremely serious and urgent issue with long-term consequences for PEI, especially the Buddhists themselves and the residents directly impacted in Eastern PEI.
Those consequences will unfold regardless of the outcome, so let’s work to make it a good one for everyone involved, except those who may have broken laws, in which case they should answer for that within our judicial system.
I gave the brown paper envelope documents a quick scan, enough to see the kind of dealings that were going on, but then decided to set them aside. I didn’t want them to influence my research any further. I can see what they can prove….I wanted to see if I could prove the same thing without them. This mini-book is the result of that effort.
The documents I received clearly focused on very specific deals and correspondence…all the “particulars” regarding Master Zhenru’s plans to relocate Bliss and Wisdom’s global headquarters from Taiwan to PEI, mostly records related to land and property purchases.
To properly grasp the significance of the particulars, it seemed necessary to first establish a framework within which a proper understanding of all those particular transactions, correspondences and connections could be understood.
This article is, therefore, an attempt to provide the “big picture” – an organized presentation of relevant, but mostly general, facts and issues related to, and of significant relevance to – being able to understand the Buddhist monks, nuns, and parishioners in PEI.
The rest of this preamble addresses two preliminary matters, each having a corresponding aim:
1) to explain the rationale for the long gap between my last Monkileaks article and this one [2 months – September 11, 2020], spoiler alert, the biggest reason being (you might have guessed) the King Government denying (FOIPP Request) and blocking (Corporate Registry) access to some of the most important information I needed; and
2) to provide a short glossary of key Buddhist terms necessary to understand the Bliss and Wisdom Buddhists in PEI – terms which appear in citations later in the research.
Regarding my first aim: There are four main reasons that I’ve waited this long to publish this mini-book, in addition to the time it took me to actually put it together:
(1) Wait and See Attitude: I wanted to see what would happen naturally, without my interference, after the Three Rivers Council denied the Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute (nuns) a building permit. Knowing that the province has most of the same information that I have, I expected – since it was stated publicly by Three Rivers Council members and the Mayor after that decision, that Three Rivers Council would need to hear from the province given the fact that the main issues and concerns related to the land purchases, which is a provincial jurisdiction falling under the Lands Protection Act.
(2) Waiting for Access Documents: I had submitted an Access to Information Request on September 17, 2020 with wording as follows:
I
was waiting for those documents to see what – if anything – the
province was doing or saying about the Buddhists since Bloyce was handed
that flash-drive full of documents last Fall. I didn’t get much. I
received 18 pages in total; lots of them had nothing on them at all
except a note like the following:
Section
25(1) is “solicitor-client privilege” by the way – a government
favorite. The Government likes to use that one because that one is the
only provision within the FOIPP Act that allows the Government to keep
the Information and Privacy Commissioner from seeing the actual contents
in the documents. She has to take their word that they are indeed solicitor-client privileged!
I currently have a review almost completed by the new Information and Privacy Commissioner, Denise Doiron, based on a challenge I’m making for being denied documents which the Public Body objected to being released on the basis of section 25(1), despite no lawyer ever apparently being involved. That Order from the Privacy Commissioner will not be made public until shortly after Christmas.
(3) Waiting for New Business Registry Search features: I had been eagerly awaiting the installation of new search features and fields of information that would provide access to the names in the PEI Corporate / Business Registry – as well as all the different corporations that a particular person is associated with as a director, officer or shareholder – knowing that it would greatly expedite my research. That was supposed to come on September 1st, but, as far as these Buddhist corporations are concerned at least, that hasn’t happened. I’ll say a bit more about the ongoing denial of access to names in the Business / Corporate Registry in a minute, just to document another broken promise from the King Government for posterity.
(4) GWBI Presentation to Natural Resources and Sustainability: l got wind that GWBI might be called before the legislative committee a few weeks ago, so I decided it would be wise to hold off on publishing to see what questions would be asked, and what answers provided. That was a good decision, as you’ll see from the section on that presentation, I got a lot of insight into the real problem at least, which will also be explained later, thanks to Mr. Cory Deagle’s efforts, being both the Chair of the Standing Committee and MLA for Montague – Kilmuir [not bad for a rookie backbencher with no obvious support (and likely significant resistance) from his Premier and most of his fellow PC MLA Cabinet Ministers!].
It’s All about Interconnected Corporations with the LPA
PEI’s Land Protection Act (LPA) has a very unique and specific built-in legal understanding of the interconnected nature of businesses and corporations when it comes to the purchase of PEI land. The focus isn’t primarily on the technical, legal word-smithing kind of distinctions that appear on paper with separate incorporations and company registrations; what’s really important is the nature of the relationships among and between the people involved.
The definition of corporation spelled out in Section 1(d) of the LPA reads as follows:
(d) “corporation” includes a partnership, cooperative association or body corporate whether formed or incorporated under the law of this province or any other province or of Canada or outside of Canada, and for the purposes of this Act a corporation and other corporations directly or indirectly controlled by the same person, group or organization shall be deemed to be one corporation;
This broad definition was meant to cast a wide net to remove at least some ambiguity from the law…”ambiguity” being the stuff lawyers use to circumvent provisions in the Act. The framers of the LPA were really serious back then about preventing the concentration of land ownership and control in any one “group” or family of companies connected to be essentially the same business entity, either directly or indirectly, like members of a family.
The LPA definition of corporation is very relevant to the Buddhist situation, and represents the principal interest of my research – to show in two ways that all the monks and nuns and parishioners are one family/corporation/international organization (Bliss and Wisdom Corporation Inc., incorporated in Taiwan).
Understanding the origin, development and organizational structure of Bliss and Wisdom Corporation Inc. based in Taiwan will help us make some sense out of the subsequent creation of GEBIS and GWBI as overseas extensions of Bliss and Wisdom. If this is true, then each of the separate Buddhist corporate entities (and there are many) including GEBIS and GWBI, Hopetown Corporation, Moonlight International Academy, Leezen, Grain Essence, etc… don’t get to each own 3,000 acres of PEI.
Bliss and Wisdom has three distinct categories of membership: (1) monks; (2) nuns; and (3) parishioners – as I’ll explain later, this is a distinct difference from Catholic monasticism (i.e., Contemplative Religious Orders of Catholic monks and nuns don’t live off donations).
This distinction is significant in that the parishioners or “laity” constitute an integral part of the entire monastic community – the engine if you will. The parishioners feed the monasteries with their sons and daughters, and utilize their private status in the economy to expand assets and generate revenue which is funnelled or donated to Bliss and Wisdom.
The claim being made by Buddhist spokespeople like Venerable Yvonne Tsai, Finance Officer on the Board of GWBI, is that the laity are private citizens. That may be correct from a strict legal point of view, but with respect to the organizational structure of Bliss and Wisdom and the provisions of the Lands Protection Act , well, it’s a bit more complicated than that.
The Land Protection Act was infused with a spirit set on achieving an objective both inspired and defined by an attempt to catch attempts to use legal loopholes and whatnot to obscure the true nature of intimate organizational connections that may not necessarily show up on paperwork. Unfortunately, governments have turned control of the administration and (to a large extent) the interpretation of the Act to IRAC staff – a Crown Corporation – who have squelched the true Spirit of the LPA years ago, while successive governments have been happy to sit back and let them.
The Bliss and Wisdom Parishioners are indeed private citizens, however, they also represent the most essential layer of membership within Bliss and Wisdom, without which no monasteries would exist. It’s the laity that both generates100% of the source of funding for Bliss and Wisdom monks and nuns living in monasteries, and it is the laity who provide their children to the same Bliss and Wisdom Global Corporation, first as students, then as monks and nuns.
This is quite different from, say, the Trappists monks in Rogersville, N.B., who farm to generate income to sustain the monastery; or the Benedictine Monks in Muenster, Saskatchewan, who run a printing press to bring in finances to sustain their monastery. The monks and nuns may appear to be “independent” on paper; however, they are all completely dependent on the same laity, like the children of the laity they, in fact, are….like I said, a big, big difference from Catholic Western Monasticism.
The integrated nature of these three levels of membership in Bliss and Wisdom makes discovering the names of the individuals behind the MANY incorporated bodies absolutely essential. Getting that information is problematic. Most businesses are incorporated federally, or in other provinces, and are only identified in PEI’s Corporate Registry as “extra-provincial” – with no names of either directors or shareholders.
The implicit, interconnected nature of all these corporate entities is that they are all Bliss and Wisdom members, and/or Bliss and Wisdom member-owned corporations. Showing that will be the central focus of my investigation and the substance of future articles.
Those “transactional documents” will show the interconnected nature of the three levels of Bliss and Wisdom organization with actual and specific land transactions that have already taken place between, and among, Buddhist members belonging to Bliss and Wisdom, as well as the incorporated entities which Bliss and Wisdom Corporation ultimately owns and/or controls. That information has, so far, and unfortunately, been kept completely secret by both the provincial government and the Buddhists.
There hasn’t been any disclosure (to my knowledge) of this critically-important corporate information necessary to understand Bliss and Wisdom’s dealings in PEI, and without which nothing else can make sense. What we have at this juncture is an endless list of questions.
What is the connection (if there is any) between the different groups of monks and nuns each having separate Canadian incorporation, either already established or in the process of establishing in PEI? Do they all come from the same Buddhist schools and traditions? Do they believe the same things? Are they coming to PEI from the same countries? If GEBIS and GWBI and CGI and the other Sanghas are indeed separate and distinct groups of Buddhists, how is it that they are all congregating in Eastern PEI part of one-and-the-same Buddhist development plan, following one and the same leader – Master Zhenru? Hmmm…
A) Setting the Stage for What Comes Next
I’m sure Islanders are aware of at least a number of defining characteristics about the Buddhists in PEI, although I don’t want to assume too much. But let’s also not assume that we know much.
I think we’ve all heard that Buddhists strive to honour and respect all sentient life forms in their daily lives; so much so that they once purchased 600 live lobsters from Sobeys then dropped them back into the Ocean, rubbing salt in the wounds of their cruel lobster-fishing neighbours (who most certainly also eat them) of their wily efforts to ensure their catches would be just a tad smaller:
“Hopefully, we can find a spot where there are no cages waiting for them,” said [Venerable Dan]. “The purpose is to cultivate compassion not just for the lobsters, but for all beings, he said.”
What a lovely sentiment! Cultivate compassion for all beings…unfortunately, that translates into the PEI vernacular as “…all beings except local lobster fishers”
who risk their lives on the waves to eke out a living to support their
families. Thanks a lot Venerable Dan…very compassionate indeed!
Shortly thereafter (hours in fact) a Buddhist-affiliated restaurant was vandalized, which made the news of course, but there was never evidence found directly linking the two incidents, or identifying culprits, or leading to any prosecution.
The
Buddhist’s love for sentient life forms took another unfortunate turn
with rats, upsetting some local farmers. A few Buddhists decided catching and releasing rats would be a good idea. That act of compassion went over like a balloon full of gnawing rats. As the Guardian reported:
“Following a complaint to the provincial Department of Environment, staff members were sent down to talk to the monks about what they were doing. While it isn’t illegal to catch and release rats, a spokeswoman with the department says it’s something that tends to bother P.E.I. farmers.“ [Guardian, September 30, 2017]
I would pay good money for an audio transcript of that “complaint to the Department of Environment”.
“Tends to bother farmers” you say? No kidding. I grew up on a potato and grain farm (a couple of rat’s – yum yum – favourites on the menu), and to be honest, I can’t actually recall rats ever being a bother. No. But I do remembering them eating holes in anything and everything otherwise causing a tremendous amount of disgusting-smelling chaos and financial loss, with rat crap pellets strewn all over the place in our warehouses. Unbelievable how fast those nasty breeding machines can wreck havoc on a farm.
So I can fully understand how a neighbouring farmer – or any neighbour for that matter, farmer or not – might consider someone dropping rats off on or near his or her property as an act akin to a white-glove slap across the face in Medieval times. But enough about lobsters and rats.
Sometimes I wonder if the Buddhists secretly view us as a horde of barbarians ruled by our brutish passions. Do they privately feel disgusted by our rat-rage killing rampages and lust for luscious lobsters? Are Buddhists constantly working to repress what they REALLY think about us behind those kindness smiles? I hope not.
Most Islanders would know a few other sundry things about the Buddhists, such as (1) they grow lots of sunflowers; (2) they bake and donate bread rolls to charities; and (3) they buy every piece of property they have an interest in and their eyes on (regardless if they are on the market) and usually get what they want with their unique style of Bliss and Wisdom negotiation (deep pockets).
Most of us likely know a few other mostly superficial things about the Buddhists. Things we got from observation or from reading or hearing local news stories.
But who are the Buddhists really? Why did they decide to come to PEI from Taiwan of all places?
I doubt that many Islanders have a clue about who the Buddhist really are. We’ve been mostly left to wonder and guess. Neither the Buddhists nor the PEI government have ever told us anything substantive about the long-term Buddhist Master Plan and the massive transformational impact on PEI that will happen from that plan if it unfolds as expected, especially impacts on the residents of Eastern PEI.
The Buddhists just showed up one day, won our hearts, and everyone seemed on board with what was said: there was going to be a couple of Buddhist monasteries built in Eastern PEI, creating significant economic development; the Lobster Shanty was also supposed to become a major hotel and resort complex, etc.
What has transpired since then, and the information that has been coming in dribs and drabs, mostly from what locals have been able to glean from observations, conversations, and interactions with the monks and nuns, is minimal and usually unverifiable. They only reveal fuzzy contours of a much larger, longer-term plan and vision that has never been publicly discussed, nor involved meaningful discussions and consultations with local residents.
What are the Buddhist’s political views? Their philosophical beliefs? How do they see themselves integrating into (or not) and contributing to (or not) Island society in the long-term? The Buddhist’s have a significant need for local businesses and tradespeople at the present time, during the construction phases of their development plan, but what will replace that social and economic activity once the building is complete and there’s no longer a need for local trade services and building materials?
And as far as day-to-day “goods” are concerned – it’s impossible to determine exactly how much retail spending is actually happening in PEI, but it appears the principal supply chain is with Taiwan, Korea, and other Asian countries, not the local corner store.
These
pictures were snapped last week. Aside from the striking fall colours,
the other significant thing about them is, of course, all these shipping
containers spread out on Buddhist-owned property. They signal a
recurring activity for the Buddhists.
(1)
Multiple shipping containers are offloaded onto a Buddhist-owned
property in eastern PEI, then (2) the goods are stored in one of many
residential houses purchased by Buddhist monks, nuns or parishioners
vacated and sitting empty: a “residential warehousing program” of sorts.
The one thing that never seems to be in short supply with the Buddhists is money…hard, cold, cash.
What is the source of the hundreds of millions of dollars of cash and wire transfers pouring into PEI? Neither the Buddhist monks nor nuns generate any revenue.
When asked by a Three Rivers Councillor about the source of their substantial financial means, the surprising answer was that 100% of GWBI’s funds came as donations from parishioners.
Audio PlayerThat’s a stunningly vague answer when you consider the vast funds required to build new headquarters for a global corporation moving it’s world headquarters from Taiwan to Prince Edward Island.
The funds are coming from Taiwanese and Chinese Bliss and Wisdom parishioners making donations to Bliss and Wisdom in Taiwan. Are the people who are donating that money in Taiwan and China aware of how the money is being spent in Canada? Much more on that later; but first, let’s get a better understanding of the institutional and organizational structure of the Buddhists in PEI.
Following the recent Three Rivers Council’s decision not to approve the building permit for another GWBI dormitory, much of the discussion and comments on social media in following days referred to GEBIS (Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society): It is inaccurate and confusing to think of the Buddhist situation in PEI in any other way than “Bliss and Wisdom”.
The GEBIS monks weren’t involved with the permit issue. It was exclusively an issue with the GWBI (Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute) nuns. The permit application was submitted by the separately-incorporated GWBI, however, the entire initiative and project (including the funding for the project) was an initiative of Bliss and Wisdom, as decided and directed by Master Zhenru.
Master Zhenru was not, however, at the Three Rivers Council to answer questions about her Master(literally)plan to relocate the global headquarters of Bliss and Wisdom in PEI. No one but Master Zhenru is able to explain the intricacies and details of her long-term plan to bring more Bliss and Wisdom monks and nuns (and also Buddhist monks and nuns from China, Malaysia, etc.) to PEI.
Unless things change with different groups of Buddhists coming to PEI who are not Bliss and Wisdom Buddhists, or are not Chinese Buddhists anxious to exit China and integrate into Bliss and Wisdom in PEI, it is important that the public discussion about the Buddhists in PEI consistently refer to all the Buddhist monks, nuns, and parishioners as members of Bliss and Wisdom. They follow the same authority and leader, and they are all receiving financial support from the same pool of donations contributed by the same Bliss and Wisdom followers and supporters living in Taiwan.
Both the nuns and monks abide by the decisions made by Master Zhenru on how donations are used; decisions that affect each organization uniquely to a degree, but work in tandem to realize her plan to relocate Bliss and Wisdom’s global headquarters in PEI and grow Bliss and Wisdom by attracting and integrating Buddhists from different Buddhist traditions, primarily from China and Malaysia [several hundred Buddhists from China and Malaysia (mostly China) are currently living in PEI, in rented houses and the old Lobster Shanty that never did get developed into a resort].
There was an explicit denial by the Board Director of Finance for the Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute (GWBI), Venerable Yvonne Tsai, that the GWBI nuns are connected to the Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society (GEBIS), the monks. She claimed GWBI has its own fundraising, and operates entirely independently. That key claim and issue will be examined later in this article, uh…mini book, and shown to be absolutely and completely false.
(b) A Short Glossary of Buddhist Terms Used in this Research
The meaning of a number of key terms used to describe and explain Buddhism (some of which are used in a number of quotations which I cite subsequently) contain nuances of meaning specifically related to Buddhism, and are essential to know. There is a long-standing debate as to whether Buddhism is a true religion or philosophical world view, however, there is no debate on the essential meaning of the following terms:
Dharma is a Sanskrit word that translates literally to “right direction,” “rightful duty,” or “righteous living.” But the concept of dharma has a far deeper meaning than its direct translation. Essentially, your dharma means your purpose in life. Your dharma is your true calling – what you were put here to do.
Karma is a Sanskrit word meaning “action.” It refers to a cycle of cause-and-effect that is an important concept in many Eastern Religions, particularly Hinduism and Buddhism. It has nothing to do with “fate,” as is often thought in Western culture, but has to do with the outcomes of the either positive or negative things we decide to do. In its essence, karma refers to both the actions and the consequences of the actions.
Sangha comes from the Sanskrit word “Samgha” meaning “Community.” Sangha (plural Sanghas) refers to the entire Buddhist community of monks, nuns, novices, and laity. In Catholic monasticism, the equivalent term – monastic community – is not understood to include “laity”, although some monastic rules have introduced a “lay order” for individuals seeking to follow a spiritual path of prayer in their secular lives.
Sutra is a Buddhist scripture or foundational writing which Sangha rely on for guidance.
Vinaya is the division of the Buddhist canon or teaching (Tripitaka) containing the rules and procedures that govern the Buddhist monastic community, or sangha. The parallel in Catholic monasticism would be the “monastic rule” (e.g., Trappist rule; Benedictine rule, etc.) usually penned by the founders of the particular Religious Order with the Catholic Church.
Lamrim (Tibetan: “stages of the path”) is a Tibetan Buddhist textual form for presenting the stages in the complete path to enlightenment as taught by Buddha. In Tibetan Buddhist history there have been many different versions of lamrim, presented by different teachers of the Nyingma, Kagyu and Gelug schools.
Samsara: the cycle of death and rebirth to which life in the material world is bound.
Novices, Proficients, Professed: These are stages in the progression from deciding to become a monk or nun, and actually taking ‘final vows’ professing a life-long vow to live as a celibate monk or nun. It is curious that these are the same words used to refer to the stages in becoming a Catholic monk, nun or professed member of a Religious Order. Once professed, both Buddhist monks and nuns are referred to as Venerable.
INTRODUCTION
The Buddhists in PEI have connections and interests that extend into other provinces across Canada, especially British Columbia and Ontario, as well as countries throughout the world, especially Taiwan, China, and the United States. There are many tentacles extending from the Bliss and Wisdom Corporation registered in Taiwan, into PEI, in several other provinces in Canada, the United States, and globally.
There are countless affiliated corporate entities under Bliss and Wisdom’s ownership and/or control, both for-profit and non-profit charitable corporations. Some have been incorporated in other provinces (GEBIS was first incorporated in British Columbia, then PEI, then Ontario), but most have been incorporated federally then subsequently registered in PEI.
Many Bliss and Wisdom-controlled corporations are entirely unknown to Islanders. They are neither registered in PEI nor Canada, but in other countries throughout the world. All these organizations were either founded by Master Zhenru or are organizations over which she has assumed direction, according to information on a website promoting Zhenru’s writings, art, and music:
“So far, the charitable organizations founded or directed by Zhenru are scattered in more than 50 cities around the world. Its main themes include: clean plastic and beach, plant trees and forests, health and conservation, vegetarian and vegetable food, spiritual growth, caring for the elderly, inheritance of traditional Chinese medicine, Free clinics and cultural preservation in rural areas. [本文作者：真如，出自【思荷集】，原文請點此：https://lotus.zhen-ru.org/author]
Notwithstanding the recent announcement by Hon. Bloyce Thompson that Islanders would get access to the names of shareholders as well as directors of corporations operating in PEI (speaking in his capacity as PEI’s Attorney General), unfortunately, no such information is being provided for most of these Bliss and Wisdom-affiliated corporate entities.
In the Legislative Assembly on June 10, 2020, Green Party MLA and Agriculture Critic, Michele Beaton, challenged Minister Thompson to tell Islanders when the changes to the Corporate Registry would finally be made, giving Islanders the access that the Business Corporation Act amendment that had already been passed November, 2019.
That action would have made the following changes to the registry: (1) restore the same degree of transparency that was in the PEI Corporate/Business online registry before former Liberal Premier Wade MacLauchlan took it away [i.e., the names of Directors], but also; (2) add a name search field allowing a simple search showing all the corporate affiliations a given individual has; and (3) provide access to the names of the beneficial owners of corporations, e.g., the names of Shareholders:
Later in June, 2020, before the House sitting ended, Michele Beaton again pressed Thompson for specifics:
Ms. Beaton: Will people have access to be able to use a search feature through this new corporate registry?
Mr. Thompson: Yes.
Ms. Beaton: When will that new corporate registry go live?
Mr. Thompson: With discussion with the director, Steven Dowling and Curtis Toombs, they hope to have it enacted in August or early September.
Ms. Beaton: Is there a clear date on that? Usually, you’d have a go date, like a launch date. Is there a clear launch date for that?
Mr. Thompson: Early September. I’ll say.
Bloyce says a lot of things!
September 1, 2020 was the special day he later identified when the big launch would happen, the “great reset” catapulting PEI into a whole new era of transparent democracy. We would finally get a window installed on the front side of the insider’s clubhouse enabling us to peer into the secret world of numbered companies and faceless shareholders.
Dennis King’s promise to put a simple, cost-free “name search field” in the Corporate Registry (delivered with great passion, eloquence and enthusiasm before the last election) would finally be that…as he put it…“great first step to achieving government transparency.” Amen to that!
I went to bed that last day of August giddy as a 5-year old on Christmas eve…but it wasn’t sugar plums dancing around in my head, it was streaming lists of corporations I imagined would likely pile up under the names of a few insiders I was going to check out first thing in the morning.
Man, if I had a dollar for every time Denny King crushed my hope in humanity and made a fool out of me with another broken promise….(sad emoji)
As it turns out, not only are Islanders NOT getting a name field to search for all companies that a particular person might be a director, officer or shareholder of, we’re not even getting the names of shareholders as promised, at least not for Island companies choosing to incorporate federally, or in other provinces or territories, which seems to be the new “go-to strategy” for businesses in PEI these days, since it’s a pretty low-cost way ($250.00 incorporation fee) to continue to circumvent disclosure that was supposed to have been fixed by Premier King, simply by bypassing that requirement in the newly-amended Business Act with an extra-provincial incorporation and subsequent registration in PEI.
Worse still, we’re apparently not even going to get the names of the directors of corporate entities in our registry once those extra-provincial corporations register to do business in PEI.
As well, in the old Registry, if you typed in the number for a numbered company (which there seems to be more and more of these days) you got one result – the particular company with that number as a name.
In the new Registry, you get pages and pages of numbered companies that come up randomly, showing no rhyme or reason [no clue why that wouldn’t be immediately flagged as a major glitch needing repair, but it looks like the “new normal” ], with no way to further narrow the search results. It’s now nearly impossible, and very time-consuming, to locate the registry filing for a particular numbered company.
It seems there’s no lengths the government won’t go to in its efforts to obscure information about corporations in PEI. No matter. It did take extra work, but I finally found what I needed to find, so let’s get at it.
Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society (GEBIS) is a Canadian registered charitable organization first incorporated in British Columbia in 2006, then registered in Prince Edward Island in 2008, then registered in Ontario in 2013.
This is the information on GEBIS in the PEI Corporate/Business Registry – no names (thanks Bloyce):
The names of directors and shareholders for Buddhist-owned and/or Buddhist-affiliated corporations registered and operating in PEI (but incorporated elsewhere) – or any other corporation for that matter – should be a requirement for registration to do business or otherwise operate in PEI, in keeping with the stated commitment to make this corporate information public, in the interest of providing a degree of transparency which is the only way it is possible to improve compliance with laws. That’s how democracy is supposed to work.
What’s the point telling Islanders that the shareholders of corporations will be made public if the PEI Government doesn’t also make disclosure of directors, officers and shareholders with the PEI registration of extra-provincial corporations public as well? The changes become useless if that isn’t also required information with all corporate registrations as well as incorporations. Such an easy go-around makes a mockery of the claim that Islanders have been provided meaningful access to the names of corporate directors, officers and shareholders.
CHAPTER 1
The Objectives and Scope of the Monkileaks Investigation
It’s been nearly two months since I last published an article in this series, so I want to start by restating a few of the claims I made in the first of those three articles.
I launched this series prematurely, as a result of a decision I made to go public with some of the “conclusions” before actually doing the work and publishing the research – I felt a moral obligation at the time to bring concerns to the attention of the Three Rivers Council before a vote on the GWBI building permit took place.
In Monkileaks Episode #1 [Three Rivers: The Sun, the Moon and the Truth] I listed claims for which I indicated I would later provide evidence in a series of articles. Those claims are worth restating:
“It was not my intention to publish anything on this investigation for a few weeks. However, given the pending vote by Three Rivers Council – and the unbelievable silence and sheer irresponsibility of the provincial government, which has had all the same information since last November that I have, yet were not willing to share it with Montague councillors – I decided to go public at this time with the claims I intend to prove in subsequent articles:
-
The feature graphic for this series came from Bliss and Wisdom (the parent organization for GEBIS and GWBI) in Taiwan. It is the long-term plan: to bring between 20,000 and 30,000 laypeople to Eastern PEI. The complex (community of buildings) is estimated to cost roughly $500,000,000.
-
GEBIS (monks) and GWBI (nuns) present as separate entities, but operate as one entity. A third group (CGI) is also now on PEI, and the plan includes at least 3 more Buddhist groups to locate in Eastern PEI; all presenting as separate corporate entities, however, operating under Bliss and Wisdom.
-
Nuns and monks are buying property as both non-residents and permanent residents of PEI without having to go through IRAC and Executive Council to obtain approval, often hundreds of acres of farmland which they have no intention to farm. There have also been a huge number of land and home transactions (one resident told me at least 200) where many monks, nuns, laypeople each purchased 5 acres, thereby circumventing IRAC and Executive Council completely. The use of ‘bundling’ non-resident names to purchase is common.
-
International Students at GEBIS and GWBI are receiving wire transfers from Taiwan and/or China and are then ‘donating’ large sums to the monastery.
-
Buddhist laypeople are coming into PEI under the federal “temporary foreign worker” program as ‘volunteers’.
-
Buildings and land purchased by ‘individuals’ clearly belong to the monasteries – in one instance I took a picture of a building with a sign on the door indicating it is a GWBI residence; however, the purchase was made by 5 laypeople at the direction of GWBI.
-
There is very strong evidence that suggests money laundering is also happening; however, that part of the investigation is being undertaken by a federal Liberal MP and his staff with whom I’m in close contact. Money laundering is a criminal offence and falls under federal jurisdiction.
-
Non-profit organizations such as Moonlight International have little or no activity or business, but seemingly have as their chief purpose purchasing land and assets.
-
Land purchased by parishioners is being used by the monks and nuns as if they owned it, with no lease agreements.
-
The GEBIS library is on land owned by an individual monk – adjacent to the Monastery. The GEBIS monastery is surrounded by parcels of land that’s part of the grounds of the monastery, but owned by individual monks
When IRAC began an investigation into GEBIS and GWBI in 2015-16, there was a ‘freeze’ on any further land purchases. GWBI purchased a large property in Brudenell during that time with the names of 5 parishioners (laypeople) to avoid IRAC application, which was explicitly stated as the purpose of purchasing that way…to evade IRAC.
The items in blue are all either directly or indirectly related to land and property issues, especially land and property purchases, IRAC applications, etc., as well as correspondence and other documentation related to my claims that all three levels of membership in Bliss and Wisdom (Monks, Nuns, and Parishioners) are buying, selling and transferring land for the same organization, Bliss and Wisdom, and should therefore be compelled to live within the 3,000 acre limit for corporations, as per the understanding of corporation in the Lands Protection Act.
This violation of the Lands Protection Act (there’s about 7,000 acres over the 3,000 limit from what I gather with a cursory review, however I have yet to do an exact calculation, and it will be on the low side since not all transactions can be identified currently).
This concentration of land within Bliss and Wisdom is happening mostly because applications to IRAC, as well as private real estate purchases, are being made in many different names, using many different corporate entities and/or individuals, some nuns, some monks, but most of them are parishioners.
Much of the information that the GWBI nuns recently presented to the members of the Legislative Assembly Standing Committee on Natural Resources and Sustainability, chaired by PC MLA, Cory Deagle, was in response to the claims I had made public in my first Monkileaks article, as well as in person without evidence at the Three Rivers Council meeting when the decision was deferred for 2 weeks.
As you will see later, in a video clip of that Standing Committee session with the nuns, Venerable Yvonne volunteered that she had heard from an Island friend that some people were saying that GWBI had used individual Buddhists to circumvent IRAC (at the time GWBI was under investigation by IRAC and was not supposed to purchase any land until it was completed). She stated emphatically that GWBI would never do that kind of thing.
How she then responded after Mr. Deagle read an email from the Assistant-Abbess, Venerable Janet, indicating that she was doing exactly what Venerable Yvonne had just said GWBI would never do is a priceless video clip coming up later.
I first want to offer a panoramic overview to provide some indication of the complexity of the entire situation. Some of this information warrants dedicated investigations in their own right, however, I’ve only carved out a small part of that for myself.
But first, my crazy summer hitchhiking across the great US of A to Big Sir California on the Pacific coast, up into BC, then back across Canada to PEI.
Chapter 2
My Background Experience with Monasticism and Buddhism
I don’t usually get personal in my writing, but it seemed fitting to share a bit of autobiographical information about my past education and experience with both monasticism and Buddhism. I thought it might give some sense of both my long-standing interest in religious studies, spirituality and monasticism, as well as my credentials in these areas, having taught approximately 20 courses at UPEI and McGill University dealing with both eastern and western world religions, including Buddhism.
I hadn’t thought about my monastic experiences for a very long time, so I’ll confess, I got carried away trekking down memory lane. I had such a great time remembering that amazing summer journey hitchhiking across North America and visiting different Catholic Monasteries 41 years ago, especially recalling the faces of the special people I met who I honestly hadn’t thought about for (in some cases) decades, I thought I might as well share a few experiences that were popping into my head while I was writing since they were streaming into [no, I did not get a Tesla neural implant] my mind anyways, and I type really fast.
But to be honest, this section is not essential reading, so I won’t be offended if you skip to the next section. Because I won’t know. Unless you message me to say, “I skipped that section about you,” then I’ll be offended, so don’t do that. But in the spirit of helping you to make a fully-informed choice, yes, you will be able to understand the Buddhists in PEI just fine if you skip ahead to the next section.
However, I will say that you’ll miss out learning about how I spent a night freezing in the cold San Francisco bus station sitting for hours next to a dishevelled junkie back; and that early morning encounter with a beaver after waking and emerging from my army-down sleeping bag nestled next to a pristine lake in the middle of nowhere in the wilds of Oregon….you probably want to hear more about that one…and there’s a few more doozies. “What was I thinking?” Indeed!
Let’s back up a step.
After graduating from Kinkora Regional High School (KRHS) in the Spring of 1976, I began a Bachelor of Arts degree in Religious Studies at UPEI that same September, rooming in Blanchard Hall.
At some point during (or just after) my second year, I met an amazing man while on a prayer retreat at the Trappist Monastery in Rogersville, N.B., named Dr. Anthony Opisso.
They have a wonderful guest house at the Trappists, as do most Catholic monasteries, where family members of the monks or retreatants can stay for different periods of time, depending on their particular circumstances. This may be part of a solution for the Buddhists as well – Guest Houses to accommodate visits from family members, so they don’t have to buy up houses and property, only to leave vacant most of the year, or to be used as residential warehouses for goods shipped from the Far East.
Brother Anthony (as everyone called him) had a lucrative private medical practice in the United States. After contracting a deadly illness, and given just days to live, Anthony promised God that if he healed him and he lived, he’d give the entirety of the rest of his life to God. He lived. What happened next was his journey discovering what “giving everything to God” meant for him.
He first believed that being a doctor and all, a life dedicated to God meant abandoning his upscale medical practice to become a missionary doctor in Africa, which is exactly what he did for a period of time, but then experienced a profound call to live as a religious hermit.
It’s a fascinating story how Anthony first went to the Little Brother of Jesus (a contemplative Catholic Order in France), then to England with the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, then to the Oblates in Arnprior and Waupous Island, just north of Ottawa, Ontario, finally to settle at the Trappists in New Brunswick, where he lived out the final 27 years of his life as a third-order Lay Discalced Carmelite hermit and resident doctor for the Trappist monks.
Anthony
stayed mainly in his hermitage on the other side of a little lake
beside the monastery, but he also had two large rooms in the monastery –
[the old brick building in the picture] with about 10,000 books
(remember, this was long before the days of the internet).
Anthony spent most of his time working tirelessly on scriptural research and writing. He taught himself Hebrew, Greek and Latin, and was already fluent in written and spoken French and Spanish. He had acquired dozens of original copies of early sacred manuscripts and ancient writings from the British Museum while in England, not to mention thousands of rare books.
Br. Anthony had once given serious consideration to becoming a Carthusian brother – the most cloistered and secluded of monks in the world of Catholic Religious Orders. I had read all about St. Bruno’s life – the founder of the Carthusians – and was fascinated. I set myself to having a monastic experience with the Carthusians, but that took more than a little planning, since the Carthusians are one Monastic Order that doesn’t have a Guest House, nor do they even allow visitors.
Br. Anthony contacted the Prior, who he happened to know personally, Fr. Raphael Diamond, who agreed to allow me to visit the monastery and stay 2 weeks in my own hermit cell the following summer.
I had become increasingly disillusioned with the intellectual pursuit of knowledge about religion. My interest in carrying on with my University degree was being gradually being displaced with a simultaneously-increasing interest in learning more about, and experiencing, spirituality and monasticism.
My plan to spend two weeks at the Carthusian monastery in Arlington, Vermont the following summer left me with time, so I returned to PEI from the Trappists – where I had spent about a month of the summer of 1978 – to put in another year at UPEI, but I didn’t take any courses.
I shared a house with some of my same roommates from the previous two years – buds I had graduated with from KRHS – but when we’d trek up the hill from Burns Avenue to campus every morning, they begrudgingly went to classes complaining about having to sit through boring so-and-so’s class while I excitedly headed off to the Robertson Library to grab and begin a new book I had lined up the day before.
I would get a coffee and then nestle into one of those beanbag seats that were trendy at the time. My goal? Two actually. Read a new book every day and ruin my back with a trendy beanbag seat (I achieved both goals, thank you very much!).
Those books were mostly on the lives of saints, on different monastic orders and their rules, early church fathers and their writings, and all types of books on monastic lifestyles, both cenobitic (communities of monks, nuns or hermits) and eremitical monks and nuns (solitary hermits).
I decided to expand my monastery-experience beyond the Carthusians the following summer and see if I could arrange similar two-week experiences at a number of other contemplative monastic Catholic Orders of monks in the US and Canada. My plan was to hitchhike across the US, up into BC, then across Canada back to the Trappists in northern New Brunswick over the sumer and that’s exactly what I did.
I stayed 2 weeks at 5 of my favourite Catholic Monastic Orders; 3 in the US, and 1 in Saskatchewan, beginning with a 2 week stay at the Trappists visiting with Br. Anthony and preparing for my trip. The Carthusians were next on the list from the Trappists, those dates being fixed nearly a year earlier.
I could write a book of stories from that hitchhiking trip and it wouldn’t be a tiny book! It was a long time ago, so like with most experiences that far in the past, the memories that stick and tend to naturally line up in your mind as first, second, third, etc., are the ones that either: (1) had the most impact on your life, leaving an indelible and formative mark; or (2) were “traumatic” experiences that scare the beGEBIS out of you, and immediately burn a deep imprint into your neural net that remains for life. I’ll share just a few of both types, starting with my experience at the Carthusians.
The third-most powerful spiritual experience I’ve had so far in my life was the moment I first met the Carthusian Prior, Fr. Raphael Diamond.
I arrived at the base of the mountain and called up to the monastery from a landline. since that was a quarter of a century before cell phones. I was picked up in a (appropriately) pickup truck, and the monk just did a U-turn and immediately headed back up a winding narrow dirt road for about a mile to the top of the mountain. I was told “wait here,” then after a few minutes asked to come into a room to meet Fr. Diamond.
I can still recall the experience when I looked into his eyes and he started talking – in an instant, I experienced what I can only describe as complete ‘self-forgetting’. That normal chatter in my brain disappeared so immediately and completely I lost a sense of myself (which I only realized later because, like I said, I lost a sense of myself).
My recollection of that encounter was as if time had stood still for a minute, that in the quiet and peace of that spiritual encounter, the sheer power of that man’s presence transported me from a busy, noisy temporal realm into a different plateau of experience entirely. For an instance, it seemed as if time itself had stood still and suddenly made sense as nothing more than a construct of our feeble minds incapable of seeing beyond the apparent logical impossibility that change can somehow coexist with, and happen within an horizon of permanence.
After a short span of time, I suddenly became aware of myself again, where I was, what I was doing…in other words, ‘self-awareness’ and an internal process of mental chatter returned. Hard to describe experiences like that, but it has never left me and remains vivid in my memory.
Some year’s later – while obtaining a Master’s Degree in Theology at the Department of Religious Studies at Windsor University, one of professors (who happened to be both the head of the RS Department and Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the time, as well as my thesis advisor), had just published a book that helped me better understand that powerful experience meeting Fr. Raphael Diamond, titled, “Personal Presence: It’s Affects on Honesty and Truthfulness.”
That was my “wow” memory from the Carthusians.
My
“shock” memory was the day I sauntered down that same mountain path
pondering my amazing two-week experience. I suddenly happened across a
badger on the edge of the road by the ditch – a critter I had never seen
before and knew absolutely nothing about.
Thinking the holy heights had given me the charisms of St. Francis of Assisi, I slowly moved toward him with a blissful smile and some granola in hand talking like a mother talks to a newborn baby, just about to bend down and greet a fellow creature of God, brother badger, when the little bastard lurched at me with snarling fangs and a killer “you ain’t no holy man” look in his eyes. Scared the crap out of me and immediately destroyed all illusions I was entertaining that I was about to levitate or turn into Dr. Doolittle. To this day, I’m grateful PEI doesn’t have badgers.
I then hitch-hiked all the way across the US (mostly highway 80) with lots of stories I’m going to skip over, and eventually landed at the Camoldolese monastery in Big Sir California.
I remember three things from that two-week experience – how there were some die-hard “original” older monks actually living according to the monastic rule, one of whom I spent a good bit of time with (Br. Maria) and with whom I subsequently corresponded for years.
The second thing I remember is that others (both priests and brothers, the much younger crew) were experimenting with “modernizing the rule.”
The post-60’s was having a major transformative impact on culture generally in the US – but no where more than in California – and the impact of those transformative, secularizing influences were very-much evident within the Camoldolese.
The
third thing I remember is that each and every morning, the first thing I
would see when I looked out my window was a view exactly like the one
in the picture. Gazing down the mountainside and out over the pacific
ocean I’d see the same cottony-cloud of thick fog sitting on the ocean,
thick as molasses, but stopping abruptly a few hundred feet above the
water. Stunning!
When I left the Camoldolese Hermits, my hitchhiking came to an abrupt end just outside San Francisco. The third monastery I had arranged to visit was the Discalced Carmelites in Napa Valley, on the North side of San Francisco, so I had to take a bus into the city, then try to get a bus connection to Napa Valley.
That’s when I was successfully (1st stage) “recruited” by the Moonies, aka “Unification Church” that was a cult on the rise back in those days. Here’s how that happened.
I was standing looking at a huge bus schedule high on the wall, lamenting that I had just barely missed a bus to Napa Valley (it actually left early and I would have caught it if it hadn’t, which maddened me). There wasn’t another bus going to Napa Valley until the morning. Great. I had left PEI with about $300, and I honestly can’t remember what was left of that amount by the time I hit San Francisco, but I’m sure renting a hotel wasn’t in the cards. I figured I’d just have to wait it out at the bus depot, which was a pretty scary prospect.
While staring at that huge bus schedule a young woman about my age – very attractive and virgin-Maryish, with an overall peaceful, soft-smiling bearing – started up a conversation asking me where I was going. After explaining my dilemma, she told me I was in luck.
She told me she was part of a small group of Christians running a street mission in the neighbourhood around the bus depot, but that their main location was in Napa Valley, where they ran retreats, etc., “We’re going up to Napa Valley first thing in the morning,” she said, telling me I could get a ride with them. Wow! God does answer prayers.
Keep in mind that the bus depot was totally open to the street on both sides, with big steel warehouse doors rolled up. There really didn’t seem to be any security, the place was filthy, and fast filling up with homeless people, drug dealers, prostitutes, and LOTS of people who were either suffering from drug hallucinations or serious mental illnesses. Deciding to go with this saintly sister who I thought at the time was a Christian street mission worker was a no-brainer – I had slept outdoors in the middle of nowhere with wild animals, so I figured I was pretty safe with her.
We arrived at a very nice brick building (I remember it had a locked iron gate at the street) just about supper time. I remember a salad that tasted weird, and about 20 people at two long tables side by side in a large upstairs room. It was nice, and the conversation was friendly.
After supper we were asked to move into an adjoining room and take a seat on a cushion on the floor. This guy then went to the front of the room and starting talking about how everyone sees an elephant differently because they are too close and can’t see the whole ELEPHANT and I’m thinking to myself, “o.k., where is this going?” It bothered me that everyone around me had wide eyes and excited little smiles as if they’d just received some revelation about the meaning of the cosmos.
Then I had the strangest sensation: “I know this room!” I knew that I had never been in that room before, but I also knew that I had absolutely seen that very same room before. Then it hit me: “This is the room that was in a fifth estate documentary on the spread of the Moonie cult in California!” Someone had went “undercover” in that expose – in San Francisco – and had secretly filmed the very same session in the same room, pretty much from the very same spot I was sitting .
When the session was over, I immediately tracked down the girl who had done such a great job recruiting me with her lies. I recall saying to her straight up: “You’re the Moonies right?” To which she replied, “We don’t like being called Moonies, we prefer Unification Church.” I asked her why she had lied to me about being a Christian outreach and she went on about how the unification church encompasses all churches and religions…blah…blah…blah…, so I just dropped it and started worrying about how I was going to get to the Discalced Carmelites in Napa Valley.
I didn’t have a sense that I was in any danger from the Moonies, so I asked her, “What time are we leaving for Napa Valley in the morning?” Her reply? “We’re not going to Napa Valley in the morning.” Great.
I left the Loonie Moonie house in the dark, lost, trying to figure out how I could get back to the bus depot which was probably about 10 blocks away, and eventually found it. I sat on a bench inside this windy area open to the streets seriously fearful for my life for most of the night, but survived and got on a bus and to the Carmelites in the morning.
The one image burned in my brain from that night in the San Francisco bus depot was about a 1/2 hour period of time in the middle of the night when this guy came out of nowhere and sat just a few feet away from me on the same bench. He was making me very uncomfortable. He looked insane. He clearly hadn’t washed in over a year, and he just sat there staring straight ahead at a wall of about 35 payphones (remember – 1979 was long before cell phones).
This equally insane-looking woman comes bouncing in from the street wearing panties and a blouse but nothing else. She goes straight to the first phone, picks up the receiver, doesn’t dial, but talks for a while anyways, hangs up, goes to the next phone, doesn’t dial, but talks for a while….and does the same thing with every single phone. When she hung up the receiver on the last phone, she scurried back out into the night.
It was exactly at that moment the man sitting next to me who had yet to look at me or make a sound turned to me and calmly said with a glint in his eye: “Did’y ever see so f**king many freaks in all your life?” In an instant, I was no longer afraid that he might stab me and make off with my down-army sleeping bag and 1/2-lb bag of granola. Something about his presence reassured me he wasn’t a danger, he was just down on his luck – REALLY down on his luck.
The Discalced Carmelites ended up being a bigger disappointment than that fake Christian outreach worker I had supper at in San Francisco. I had studied and admired the great reformers of the Carmelite Order from the bean bag seats at the Robertson Library at UPEI the year before, and was expecting a contemplative monastery of the purest grade. The Carmelites were an ancient, austere, cloistered contemplative order that actually point to Elijah as their original “founder,” but had grown lax and lazy in the 17th century.
St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila reformed the Order, renaming it the “Discalced” Carmelites, writing spiritual classics on the practicalities and psychology of mystical union with God. Works by St. John of the Cross like: The Ascent of Mount Carmel, The Dark Night, The Spiritual Canticle, and The Living Flame of Love; and works by St. Teresa of Avila like: The Interior Castle; and The Way of Perfection.
St Teresa was the person who really initiated the major reform of the Carmelites, then was joined by the younger Spanish Carmelite friar and mystic John of the Cross. It led eventually to the establishment of the Discalced Carmelites (The “discalced” refers to not wearing shoes, signifying a return to a more austere and contemplative life) and a formal papal decree adopting the split from the old order was issued in 1580.
That
is not what I found at the discalced Carmelites in Napa valley. They
were no longer even a contemplative order, but rather a ‘teaching’ order
– high school mostly – living life high off the hog. Brother Anthony
was just a LAY Discalced Carmelite and lived a truly ascetic and
eremitical religious life.
Fade to a fat monk with slobber on his chin ripping the leg of a pig from the spit with an apple in its mouth, with one hand, while gobbling down a goblet of the best vintage wine from the local Napa Valley vineyard with the other. I couldn’t wait to leave.
I remember I scored a bunch of rare medals from a jar they no longer had any interest in – I remember finding a St. Bruno (founder of the Carthusians) which wasn’t something you’d find at the corner store.
I
decided to then hitchhike up through the Red Wood national forest and
take a more ‘back roads’ route up through Oregon, Washington and then
into British Columbia crossing the border at Chilliwack. I drove through
a tree which was kind of cool.
Back in those days it was no problem catching rides with your thumb out, especially in California, where every fifth vehicle was (literally) a psychedelic Volkswagen van with a bunch of hippies wanting to party. I always said I was just going to the next town until I got a sense whether they were safe, but hitchhiking was generally safe back then and they really did just want to party.
I’ll never forget being in the back seat of one such van with this hitchhiker with this creepy vacant look in the eyes about my age turning to me and saying with a weird kind of smiling bravado: “I’ve done a lot of drugs man!” Then added without the smile: “But I’ll never do PCP again….that stuff burned holes in my brain,” turned away, and went back to staring out the window. That memory comes to the surface from time to time and it always evokes the same sense of sadness and tragic loss in me.
Only two things come to mind when I think about my hitchhiking trek from Napa Valley to BC. At one point in Oregon I was taking a very mountainous road, wanting to experience the great outdoors. I’d been walking for quite a while with hardly any traffic on this narrow two-lane mountain road. I remember looking over a guardrail down the side of a sheer cliff into a canyon that seemed to go for a mile, giving that immediate woozy sense from head to toe. About half-way down, there was an eagle slowing gliding around and around in circles with it’s piercing shrill echoing through the canyon. That was a moment impossible to forget.
The other memory – one of those “I didn’t ask for it or necessarily want it, it just got Imprinted on my brain in a moment of terror” memories was getting trapped at night in a pretty austere piece of wilderness in Oregon. I found a little lake off from the road and camped out there. In the morning when I looked out over the lake it was spectacular – not a ripple – the sun was just coming up, not a breath of air, perfect temperature….so I said out loud: “Thankyou God!” And immediately heard the loudest SLAP about 10 ft. from my head. Unbeknownst to me there was a beaver who was clearly surprised by my “Thankyou God!” and proceeded to scare the living….let’s just say I was VERY glad I had done laundry the day before in the previous town.
The last Monastery that I visited and spent time at was St. Peter’s Abbey, a Benedictine Monastery in Muenster, Saskatchewan. The one really interesting thing about that experience was that 13 yrs later I worked with some of the same monks I met when I stayed there – but then it was as the Executive Secretary of the National Farmers Union living in Saskatoon – the beneditines published the monthly Union Farmer newspaper for the NFU.
Eventually I landed back at the Trappist Monastery. The Abbot (Fr. Alphonse Arsenault, originally from Western PEI, and who has long-since passed away) agreed to a plan that would see me live a similar eremitical (solitary – hermit) life as Brother Anthony for two years. The primary purpose of me doing this was to type and edit a major manuscript for Br. Anthony.
I had two work shifts per day during those two years – like all the monks – of about 3 hrs each, the first beginning at 3:30 in the morning milking about 60 Holstein cows for the Trappists, then as much time as I wanted for the rest of the day working with Anthony.
That was an amazing 2 years. When it was over there was a phenomenal book to show for it – The Book of Understanding – although it wasn’t published for a few years after I left the monastery.
I don’t have a piece of paper to prove it, but I had received an amazing education from my lived monastic experience and daily diet of rare books in the Monastery’s and Brother Anthony’s extensive libraries – books on a broad spectrum of issues.
After that 2 year monastic experience, I returned to UPEI to finish my BA in Religious Studies, then completed a Masters Degree in Theology at the University of Windsor, then an interdisciplinary PhD I obtained from McGill University in 1996, specializing in the study of negative social and psychological dynamics blocking or frustrating the development of moral consciousness, culminating in a dissertation titled “Ethics and Awareness” .
I have taught around 20 different 3-credit courses at UPEI and McGill over the years, many of which were multidisciplinary and cross-listed with other Departments such as Political Science and Canadian Studies. I also taught a popular Introduction to Religious Studies course on four separate occasions over the years at UPEI – and once at McGill University – that covered major world religions, including Buddhism.
I should add that in the course of my studies in religious studies, spirituality, monasticism and theology, my studies of Buddhism were not extensive. I studied and taught Buddhism mainly from the perspective of world religions, and the comparative study of religions. I never acquired languages enabling me to study original Buddhist sacred writings, of which there are a great many.
CHAPTER 3
The Birth and Evolution of Bliss and Wisdom
Bliss and Wisdom was founded in 1992 by a Taiwanese Buddhist monk, Master Jih-Chang. Jih-Chang was a devoted disciple of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and established a community for monks at Fuzhi Meditation Center in Nantou, Taiwan.
Master Jih-Chang’s Fuzhi Center was part of a quite distinct and new expression of Buddhism in Taiwan that saw monks and nuns becoming a lot more socially-engaged.
According to the authors of “Taiwan’s Socially Engaged Buddhist Groups,” Taiwan’s democratisation brought a revival of interest in Buddhism, as monks and nuns left their cloistered lives and became socially-engaged in various ministries within society:
“A new religious phenomenon in Taiwan is the advent of socially engaged Buddhism, Buddhist groups committed to working for the betterment of society and the welfare of the poor and the ill. The growth of these groups has been concomitant with democratisation, membership increasing very rapidly in the 1990s so that self-identification with Buddhism has now reached 13% of the adult population.”
There were six distinct Buddhist groups leading the growth of this movement in Taiwan, each taking on a distinct combination of social charisms, Fu-chih (later becoming Bliss and Wisdom Corporation Inc.) being one of them:
“Fu-chih was founded in 1987 by Venerable Jih Chang. While having a strong base in Han Buddhism and Confucianism, Jih Chang regarded Tibetan Buddhism to be the most advanced and refined form. He teaches from the Putidao dici guanglun (The Extensive and Orderly Treatise on Perfect Wisdom), a text by the Tibetan reformer Tsong-kha-pa, making Fu-chih the Taiwan group with the strongest emphasis on Tibetan Buddhism.”
The final section of this overview article compares the different areas of social engagement for each group, such as poverty relief, environmental and cultural work, education, etc.
Four of the six groups were engaged in education; however, it was only the Fu-chih group (Bliss and Wisdom Corporation Inc.) and Chung Tai Chan Szu with an explicitly religious focus and formative approach to education. As the article explains:
The social engagement of the six socially engaged Buddhist groups involves four areas of activity: culture, education, environment and social services. All six groups claim to be socially engaged, but they differ in both the breadth of their activities and the extent to which these activities are confined to a religious as opposed to a general purpose, or tend to serve an in-group as opposed to society in general. The easiest comparison is between education and cultural activities, in which all groups engage, though the boundaries they draw between culture and education are often ambiguous and porous. Both Tzu Chi and Fo Guang Shan offer full-blown secular education in which religion plays a very minor role….In the pre-tertiary education provided by Chung Tai Chan Szu and Fu-chih, the curriculum and the atmosphere of the schools, while conforming to national regulations, is more avowedly religious.
This is significant. It explains, at least in part, the rapid expansion in numbers with Bliss and Wisdom monks and nuns. This focus on formative education created an incubation process fuelling the objective Master Jih Chang had set with Bliss and Wisdom from the outset to expand and spread throughout the world.
Master Jih Chang’s vision maintained a strong Tibetan association tied to the Dalai Lama. Bliss and Wisdom under Master Zhenru appears to going in a different direction, one much more in lockstep with the Chinese Buddhist tradition and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
You get a good idea of the long-range vision with the initial Bliss and Wisdom model and projects of the founder in the following biography of Jih Chang found on GEBIS-Toronto’s website (separate incorporation, but also connected to GEBIS in PEI):
“Late Venerable Master founded the Bliss and Wisdom Organization (Taiwan) in 1992, and also started a community of Sangha and lay followers who have worked together diligently in spreading the Dharma by using Lamrim as the core teaching, with moral education, health and environmental awareness as additional avenues to help put these teachings into practice.
Late Master observed that the corrupt world has impacted society badly; the only way to turn it over is to cultivate a kind-hearted community as foundation. Therefore, he founded Bliss and Wisdom Education in 1997 to promote moral education, and implement various cultural and educational activities.”
From the time Jih Chang launched Bliss and Wisdom Education in 1997, nearly 800,000 students at all levels, from elementary and secondary to college, have participated in Bliss and Wisdom’s life education program.
With a curricula fully in sync with the philosophy of Bliss and Wisdom Buddhism, Fu-chich’s focus on educating and forming Taiwanese children, using a Buddhist-based religious curricula they developed, has created an amazingly successful incubation process for their organization. It has (according to a monk in Taiwan I’m in communication with) created a situation where there are so many youth wanting to carry on with Bliss and Wisdom as monks and nuns after finishing their school years with them, that Bliss and Wisdom is apparently not able to accept all those wanting to join, due to growth and expansion limitations. This organizational framework and growth model for Bliss and Wisdom in Taiwan is being exactly replicated in PEI.
Moonlight International Academy in PEI is the global extension of Bliss and Wisdom Education Park in Taiwan. I will have more to say about those connections in a subsequent article, as well as the dubious status of Bliss and Wisdom as a Canadian school, on account of the manner in which the Canadian immigration system and Provincial Nomination Programs(PNP) were abused to facilitate the aims and objectives of the Buddhists and the project that was underway to relocate their headquarters to PEI. Both systems were exploited for purposes other than those for which they were intended, and none of us were aware, or for anyone who was, probably didn’t understand the purpose and significance. But that’s for another article.
Also, and not to get too sidetracked, the Canadian for-profit corporation owned by Buddhists and also registered in PEI (but not incorporated) called Leezen foods is also just a global extension of the parent corporation in Taiwan.
Leezen (a trade name actually) is wholly-owned by Grain Essence Garden Inc., which is another extra-provincial corporation registered in PEI that is a global extension of its parent counterpart in Taiwan, which actually owns the trademark “Leezen”. Again, there are no names at all.. no directors, no officers, no shareholders in the PEI corporate registry:
Leezen stems back to another key initiative of Bliss and Wisdom that Master Jih Chang incorporated into his model of Buddhist Sangha and development – a core money-generating, volunteering-opportunity, mechanism built into the Bliss and Wisdom organizational structure and business plan like a machine producing free money:
“In addition, Late Master established the Tse-Xin Organic Agriculture Development Foundation in 1997 to help care for people’s health and protect the ecological environment. Our goal is to reduce the killing of more sentient life and create clean living space, while also leaving a pure land for future generations.
That the Buddhist Bliss and Wisdom Foundation (which is a charitable organization) works in tandem with another for-profit Buddhist company owned by lay members of Bliss and Wisdom is not unusual…it’s how the model works, as explained in an official Bliss and Wisdom Statement:
“In slightly over a decade, the Bliss and Wisdom monastic community has grown to be of scale; Bliss and Wisdom Foundation of Culture and Education, working together with Bliss and Wisdom Educational Park are actively promoting moral education and Confucian ethics; Tse-Xin Organic Agriculture Foundation cooperating with Leezen Company are strongly advocating the development of organic farming and food safety in Taiwan.” [See: “Bliss and Wisdom Official Statement, Pravarana, 2017“].
Leezen
in PEI was described in a CBC article as a “franchise” of Leezen
Taiwan, but Grain Essence Garden Inc., which runs Leezen in PEI, is
simply Bliss and Wisdom’s global extension of Tse-Xin Organic Agriculture Foundation – commonly referred to by its acronym (TOAF).
Remember that name – you’ll be hearing more about it in the
not-to-distant future since TOAF apparently has some PEI-land and
farming related interests we also haven’t heard anything about that
should be discussed. Oh, and the same three people directing the Leezen
franchise in PEI are also the directors and managers of PEI Grain
Essence Garden Inc.
I found a comment about Leezen on GEBIS-Toronto’s website that rang true with something I’ve been hearing repeatedly about Buddhists working for GEBIS in PEI – those workers (even doing highly skilled work like driving heavy equipment on construction sites) are not trained workers or certified tradespeople getting paid in an employer-employee relationship, they are Taiwanese Bliss and Wisdom lay followers who come to PEI on student visas to then work full-time as volunteers, receiving no remuneration beyond food and shelter and, of course, whatever other benefits might accrue in the cycle of birth and rebirth from their charity, as they traverse the path to Nirvana.
Volunteering with for-profit corporations is a very dubious practice, one often associated with cults, demanding rigorous oversight and built in checks and balances, but that’s a very touchy subject in this instance, as will be discussed in a later section:
“Leezen organic stores, with ‘Mutual trust and co-operation’ are replacing their traditional business competition, who currently operate the largest Direct organic chains in Taiwan, and are introducing volunteers to create a social enterprise model.
A “social enterprise model” indeed! And a darn lucrative one at that.
When people work for nothing for global corporations bringing in tons of money, and they do so for reasons other than having to earn a living wage, it is always prudent to ask who controls the money, how it gets spent, by whom, for whom…those kind of questions.
The problem, however, is that children don’t demand accountability from their parents, nor do monks and nuns demand accountability from their abbots and abbesses, and especially not from Master Zhenru. More on this later.
CHAPTER 4
Properly Situating Bliss and Wisdom Within Buddhism
In a previous Monkileaks episode, I drew attention to the danger of assuming every person in PEI of Asian descent is a Buddhist somehow associated with the Buddhists in Eastern PEI. Similarly, it is imperative we not make the same mistake thinking that a Buddhist is a Buddhist is a Buddhist.
As you can see from the preceding short section, Bliss and Wisdom is quite distinct in it’s mode of operation (socially-engaged) from pretty much every previous school and tradition within Buddhism. There are fundamental distinctions between those schools and traditions which also need to be understood, at least to some degree, if we are to properly situate Bliss and Wisdom within the much broader geo-political and historical context of Buddhism in the far East, and I’m not talking about Souris when I say far East.
As a philosophical worldview, belief system, or religion [again, not all scholars agree Buddhism meets the core criteria required to be called a religion] there are various classifications regarding how many traditions or schools there are; some say 6, others 4; however, for our purposes, it’s more insightful to talk about the two main branches of Buddhism.
The following synopsis from Wikipedia actually offers a tidy summary of the origin and evolution of the two broad traditions within Buddhism, within which there are, of course, many “mini-traditions” or schools, each with different cultural practices and preferences with respect to their thinking, practice and how Buddhist history and sacred writings are viewed and interpreted. I’ve left the footnote links for anyone who might like to dig a little deeper:
Buddhism encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices largely based on original teachings attributed to the Buddha and resulting interpreted philosophies. It originated in ancient India as a Sramana tradition sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, spreading through much of Asia. Two major extant branches of Buddhism are generally recognized by scholars: Theravāda (Pali: “The School of the Elders”) and Mahāyāna(Sanskrit: “The Great Vehicle”).
It is enough for our purposes to know what the core difference is between these two branches of Buddhism to accurately situate the Buddhists in PEI within the correct Buddhist worldview.
See if you can guess which of the following two divisions of Buddhism the Bliss and Wisdom Buddhists belong to, based on the following explanation of the main distinctions between them:
There are two main divisions in Buddhism: Theravada Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism.
Theravada Buddhism is older and the more conservative of the two main divisions of Buddhism and is often referred to as the ‘traditions of the elders’. Many Theravada Buddhists follow the teachings of the Buddha exactly, and many of them are monks or nuns.
Theravada Buddhists strive to be arhats. Arhats are perfected people who have gained true insight into the nature of reality. This means they have followed the Noble Eightfold Path to ‘blow out’ the three fires of greed, hatred and ignorance and have become enlightened. In Buddhism, enlightenment leads to nibbana (or nirvana), which means freedom from the cycle of rebirth (samsara). Consequently, they will no longer be reborn through samsara.
Mahayana Buddhists believe they can achieve enlightenment through following the teachings of the Buddha. The goal of a Mahayana Buddhist may be to become a Bodhisattva and this is achieved through the Six Perfections. Compassion is very important in Mahayana Buddhism. Therefore, Bodhisattvas choose to stay in the cycle of samsara to help others to achieve enlightenment as well as themselves.
This is a key difference between Theravada and Mahayana Buddhists. Whereas Theravada Buddhists strive to become Arhats and gain freedom from the cycle of samsara, Mahayana Buddhists may choose to stay in the cycle of samsara out of compassion for others.“
That’s a pretty big difference: either staying in the cycle of samsara out of compassion for other sentient beings, or striving to escape the cycle and achieve nirvana. Choosing to “lay down your life” in a way seems a more noble and loving approach, based on a belief that’s hard not to like that says such a choice brings good and spreads kindness, compassion and peace in the world which helps to heal others on their own path to nirvana, as well as the entire world. They call it striving for Pure Land. Did you guess Mahayana? Yep!
GEBIS offers classes on Buddhism in Charlottetown and Summerside (suspended since COVID-19) and says the following about the approach to Buddhism taken on its website:
“Classes discuss The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment (Tib. Lam rim chen mo) one of the brightest jewels in the world’s treasury of sacred literature. The author, Tsong-kha-pa, completed the book in 1402, and it soon became one of the most renowned works of spiritual practice and philosophy in the world of Tibetan Buddhism. Because it condenses all the exoteric sūtra (Buddha’s scriptures) into a meditation manual that is easy to understand, scholars and practitioners rely on its authoritative presentation as a gateway that leads to a full understanding of the Buddha’s teachings.”
There is one more thing to note to better situate Bliss and Wisdom Buddhists:
Tibetan Buddhism, which preserves the Vajrayana teachings of eighth-century India, is practised in the countries of the Himalayan region, Mongolia,[13] and Kalmykia.[14]
Bliss and Wisdom emerged and grew in Taiwan as a result of the democratization in the late 1980’s, which gave rise to public forms of Buddhist organization and expression beyond the CCP-controlled Buddhism that had prevailed in Taiwan from the mid-1940’s to the late 1980s.
There had been a significant outflow of Chinese Buddhists to Taiwan as a result of that democratization, and it was apparently those Buddhists who had been living under a repressive regime for far too long who were the real impetus for socially-engaged Buddhism:
“Following the end of World War II and the establishment of the Republic of China on the island, many monks from mainland China moved to Taiwan, including Yin Shun (印順) who is generally considered to be the key figure who brought Humanistic Buddhism to Taiwan. They gave significant contribution to the development of Chinese Buddhism on the island. [See: “Religion in Taiwan“].
The Buddhist Association of the Republic of China remained the dominant Buddhist force in Taiwan only until restrictions on religious activity ended in the 1980’s.
I mention this because of the importance of the blending of Buddhist traditions (Tibetan and Chinese) apparently happening in Bliss and Wisdom – in the “Fu-chich Group” – and how that merging was born out of the social and political historical reality in Taiwan and China over the past three decades. I don’t see the move away from Tibetan Buddhism and affiliation with the Dalai Lama and will have more to say about that later.
To understand the Buddhist corporations operating in PEI it is only necessary to see them as extensions of the same Bliss and Wisdom Corporation model that exists in Taiwan, pursuing the same organization goals, drawing from the same pool of donations, and following the same teachings and the same leader: Master Zhenru.
CHAPTER 5
Master Zhenru: The Mysterious Leader of Bliss and Wisdom
The woman looking over the architectural overlay of the envisioned new global headquarters for the Bliss and Wisdom Buddhists in the feature graphic goes by three different names.
Master Zhenru (sometimes Zhen-ru or Zhen-Ru) was born and raised in China’s Hei-Long Jiang province and given the name Meng Rong Yin.
You won’t find that name anywhere but on official documents such as her
birth certificate, passport and PEI land transactions. We’ll be seeing
that version in my next episode, which focuses on Master Zhenru and her
family member’s property holdings in PEI.
At some point, Master Zhenru ditched the “Meng Rong” part of her birth name and is known simply as Mary Jin (sometimes Mary-Jin) by those not revering her as a leader; but followers refer to her exclusively as Master Zhenru.
Meng Rong Jin was said to have been given the name “Zhenru” by Jih (sometimes Ri) Chang, who was the founder and first Master of Bliss and Wisdom. He apparently chose her as his official successor and gave her the name when she assumed her role as the new Master of Bliss and Wisdom in 2004.
When Hon. Darlene Compton asked a question about “Mary Jin” at the Standing Committee – as you’ll hear later, in an important video clip I’ve embedded – Venerable Yvonne quickly interjected that she was to be referred to as Master Zhenru.
I couldn’t help but wonder if Master Zhenru’s apparent personal aim to blend Chinese and non-Chinese traditions within Bliss and Wisdom Buddhism, coupled with her ambitions to grow and expand Bliss and Wisdom globally was behind the name that was apparently given to her by Jih Chang.
Zhenru Temple is one the most famous and oldest remaining Buddhist Temples in China, a Chan Buddhist temple located n Yongxiu County, Jiangxi. Zhenru Chan Temple is the cradle of Caodong school in Chinese Buddhism.
This unique blend of Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism in Bliss and Wisdom is clearly being attributed to the “careful guidance of the teacher [Master Zhenru]” by her followers:
“…under the careful guidance of the teacher, the Fuzhi Sangha has grown stronger day by day. “This is an epoch-making initiative to integrate the essence and tradition of Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism, and to establish a Buddhist study system…” [See: Bliss and Wisdom Foundation of America].
Has the Chinese Communist Party Infiltrated Bliss and Wisdom?
Zhen-Ru is apparently not only providing a new global headquarters in PEI for hundreds of Bliss and Wisdom monks and nuns currently in Taiwan, but expected to eventually transfer to PEI, she is also welcoming other groups of Buddhist monks and nuns from China, Malaysa, etc., inviting them to become part of Bliss and Wisdom.
This “joining” or merging of Buddhist Monks from distinct countries and traditions under Bliss and Wisdom seems entirely in keeping with what some Buddhists believe will be an imminent revival of Buddhism in China, with Zhen-Ru eventually becoming the head of the official religion of China:
Bliss and Wisdom now has 100,000 followers worldwide, with around 60,000 in Taiwan, 30,000 in Mainland China, and the rest in other countries such as Singapore, Hong Kong, and the US. According to BW monks, the Buddha prophesized that after the dharma flourishes for 500 years in Tibet, it will gravitate to China and flourish for another 500 years. Because BW’s bhikshu sangha is already the largest in Taiwan, with 800-1000 monks, BW monks are very confident that BW will hegemonize Buddhism’s rise in China, cementing their guru Mary Jin as China’s spiritual leader. BW hopes their megatemple will become a center of Buddhist learning, and play a pivotal role in their mission to propagate Mary Jin’s teachings worldwide.”
That was written by a Bliss and Wisdom monk sometime after he left Bliss and Wisdom, having left as a result of his unpleasant personal experiences and things he claims he discovered and/or witnessed. You’ll notice he has reverted to using Master Zhenru’s non-guru name – Mary Jin.
CHAPTER 6
Is Bliss and Wisdom a Cult? No, but…
I’ve heard a number of people refer to the Buddhists [and by “Buddhists ” I’m thinking they mean the robe-wearing GEBIS monks and GWBI nuns] as being completely “brainwashed,” members of a cult. Are they? No. Absolutely not. And hopefully I can explain why, but first a caveat.
Despite not being a bona fide “cult” by definition, it is nonetheless entirely possible that the vast majority of monks and nuns, and even parishioners, are being deceived and manipulated by a select group of people holding power and control over their day-to-day lives. And not just their daily lives, their yearly lives, and indeed, their entire lives and their very destiny.
Why would Zhenru and a select group of people at the top of the Bliss and Wisdom deceive and manipulate their loyal followers? Money could be a reason – easy access and total control over tons of funds coming in as donations without any real oversight could be a temptation leading to some less than moral choices on how that money is spent.
Engaging in illicit dealings would be easy to rationalize given how important Master Zhenru’s long-term vision and work is to the world….“end justifies the means” kind of stuff. There is definitely something rotten in Denmark with Bliss and Wisdom, but I’m not going to explore all the separate claims made against Master Zhenru (and there are many).
Semantics and labels should be set aside entirely when discussing things like “brainwashing” (a completely useless word). What we want to get at are the complex social and psychological dynamics happening within an organization that fail to adhere to the built-in “checks and balances” in bylaws and rules to guard against such aberrations.
The problems start when those checks and balances are not being used to detect that the followers are being deceived and manipulated, and because of that relationship of obedience and trust, information that is being withheld creates a situation very much ‘akin’ to the same dynamics more explicit and identifiable by “non-followers” in bona fide “cults”.
Such negative dynamics can infest and corrupt the relationships between the governors and governed in any number of otherwise legitimate organizations and institutions, including the relationship between provincial governments and the electorate.
Examining the various elements in the relationship between Master Zhenru and Bliss and Wisdom monks, nuns and parishioners suggests that there are indeed significant problems at play. Again, I’m not going down those roads except to point to a website [ladakh2017blog.wordpress.com] with 35 well-written, very critical articles alleging many things about how a Chinese-born person with long hair somehow managed to succeed Master Jih Chang as leader of Bliss and Wisdom in a manner not in accordance with the Rules.
This is why I say Bliss and Wisdom is not a cult – they have rules that are supposed to be the same rules as the Tibetan monks and nuns following the Dalai Lama, but they are apparently not being followed.
In a subsequent article – perhaps the next one – I will show a video clip or two from a Taiwanese TV News program (I’m getting them translated so I can insert English subtitles) from protests that happened in 2017 when Master Zhenru returned briefly to Taiwan. That website and those articles appeared at that time, but there haven’t been any new articles since.
There does appear to be strong evidence that the authentic and original teaching that Master Jih Chang entrusted to Zhenru is being gradually replaced with a more “Chinese” and less “Tibetan” flavour. There is apparently no communication between Master Zhenru and the Dalai Lama, and when disenchanted monks went to visit him, he apparently told them to expose her for failing to follow the Sangha rules.
The allegation that the strong ties and roots with Tibetan Buddhism bequeathed to Master Zhenru by Master Jih Chang are being replaced with a far-more Chinese-friendly version is one being made by a significant number of people – especially back in Taiwan. When I checked the stats on my last Monkileaks article early the following morning, there were 78 views from Taiwan, more views than in Canada at that time.
Monks from Taiwan have contacted me and provided me with additional information and documentation. Of course I need to independently verify what I receive, but so far things are checking out, and it is clear that these are not simply old-fashioned monks unwilling to accept a woman leader, they’re people who claim to have detected the dynamics of deceit, manipulation being perpetuated by the ignorance resulting from blind obedience bestowed on Master Zhenru by tens of thousands of followers.
There are actually a number of different websites and Facebook pages dedicated to “exposing” people believed to be wayward Buddhist teachers in general, and Master Zhenru in particular.
Whenever a person allows the will of another person to decide what they should think, believe or do without question – when they suspend their critical thinking and follow “blindly” as we say – then that person has essentially adopted the same mindset that we all associate with members of cults we call “brainwashed”.
We tend to assume that the beliefs with cults are so “out there” that anyone in their right mind would immediately realize that there is no evidence or good reason to believe what the members of those cults believe, so we say they are brainwashed because they can’t seem to see the obvious, or what seems obvious to us.
That state of mind found in such “out there” cults is really not that different from that in any family or other organization where there are leaders and followers, people in charge with a duty of care on one side, and everyone else in the family or organization on the other.
The hope is that leaders are good and that they will have the best interest of those for whom they have a duty of care at heart, and that the followers can trust the intentions of their leaders as moral and their decisions to be well-intentioned and motivated only by a sense of love and service to those for whom they have charge.
A lot of peace and comfort comes from accepting to be led without questioning…which is a heightened risk for people who made ‘finding comfort’ their main goal in life. Deference to those we perceive to be “legitimate authorities” resulting in us foregoing doubts, suspicions, and critical questioning which becomes habitual and a part of daily life routines. Take the current situation with the pandemic for example.
Some people say, “I don’t care what the science says about masks, if Dr. Morrison says we should wear them, then we should wear them”. This view betrays the very same non-critical, unquestioning mindset that is closed to even considering anything to be good and true other than what the trusted leader says, and is really not that different from life in a cult.
Trust the experts! With the highly-specialized and compartmentalized division of labour within today’s society, and all the jargon associated with those professional, and expensive fields of expertise, be it legal, medical, accounting, etc., most of the time we really don’t have any choice but to trust the experts, although it often doesn’t end well when we do.
People living life with a “trust the experts” mindset won’t even look at the evidence, as if doing so would betray a lack of trust that might unravel faith in the legitimate authority and destroy the comfort that trust provides.
Such interpersonal relationships are based on an abuse of power -where one party has all of it and the other party has none, but the person with no power or real say nonetheless believes he or she is the beneficiary of all the good that comes from the powerful party in the interpersonal relationship, as they bestow and share some of the benefits of that power and wealth with the loyal subjects – the phrase ‘benevolent dictator” comes to mind.
This type of interpersonal relationship based on such an imbalance of power intensifies exponentially when the “blind obedience” encompasses not only an opinion on some particular intellectual issue or material matter, but one’s very soul, one’s way of life, one’s very destiny as a human being…and such is the situation with the Buddhist monks and nuns, which is a dangerous situation.
To silence and prevent criticism or questioning, corrupt leaders often use techniques to instill a sense of guilt or shame in people who dare to allow negative ideas to enter their minds. There is evidence a very rigorous culture within Bliss and Wisdom tends to quash any suspicions about or questioning of Master Zhenru. Teachings on avoiding the creation of negative karma can be especially effective:
Enough about that – although I may have more to say about these themes in subsequent articles.
CHAPTER 7
GWBI’s Appearance at the Committee on Natural Resources and Sustainability
The appearance of three Buddhist nuns before the Standing Committee on Natural Resources and Sustainability on October 15, 2020 was entirely the doings of the Committee Chair, Cory Deagle, PC MLA for District 3, Montague-Kilmuir. They are also three of the Board members of Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute (GWBI).
These same three (and one other nun) were featured in a CBC article titled, “‘He was like, what?’: Why 4 women left their ‘normal’ lives to become Buddhist nuns,” [CBC, Dec 09, 2019 – the right-side of the above picture is from that article].
Deagle had an email from the Assistant Abbess of GWBI, Venerable Janet, which he read aloud at one point. It revealed a significant problem with the entire presentation by the nuns. How so?
Venerable Yvonne had stated unequivocally that GWBI never used, nor would ever use, laypeople to buy property for GWBI to circumvent IRAC. When Cory read that letter from Assistant-Abbess Janet, giving evidence that what Venerable Yvonne had just said was not true, thinks got uncomfortable.
Did Venerable Yvonne know about what was in that email and tell a lie, unaware that she was about to be caught in that lie?
Or did Venerable Yvonne really not know what was in that email – despite being the Director of Finance on GWBI’s Board?
Either way, it’s a big problem.
Bliss and Wisdom Buddhist monks and nuns are trained to never
communicate anything but kindness and compassion. No matter what the
situation or circumstances, the proper Buddhist response to any
accusation is to accept responsibility, if necessary, but if the
accusation is false, don’t blame others, rather, turn inward and look
for a solution that doesn’t involve blaming others, especially fellow
Buddhists for wrongdoing, but project compassion and kindness.
When
Cory read the part in yellow at the top, Venerable Yvonne didn’t know
what to say. After a pause, she asked him to read it again. She was
again left with nothing to say, having just stated that GWBI does not
use nuns, monks or laypeople to circumvent IRAC by exploiting the 5 acre
exception clause and hearing about how in that particular case that’s
exactly what they did. Awkward!
Venerable
Yvonne looked genuinely baffled and unsure of herself, as she sat
motionless, eyes darting all over the place, trying to do one of two
things (I’m not sure which): (1) reconcile what she just heard Cory read
from an email Venerable Janet wrote which created an immediate and
significant cognizant dissonance, that is, if she truly believed Venerable Janet would never intentionally do anything wrong, that would be if she was telling the truth and really didn’t know;
or perhaps she was (2) trying to think of what to say to get out of
some really hot water sitting live, on official record, in front of a
live-streaming camera putting everything she was about to say on the
record, with significant, potential consequences, if, in fact, she was
being called out on a lie. If it is indeed the latter, venerable Yvonne
should be in Hollywood, not PEI, she totally sold it!
Either way, that loooong delay showed the extent to which Venerable Yvonne was caught off-guard, and in an instant became Vulnerable Yvonne.
She finally ended up simply saying (relax, the clip’s coming up in a minute) that she had no information about the transaction and would need to get a response from Venerable Janet, which she promised to email to the Committee.
There was still the need to clear Venerable Janet from any wrong-doing either because V. Yvonne: (1) is actually colluding with her celibate colleagues covering-up corruption; or (2) she was attempting to solve her personal Karmic crisis of finding a solution projecting only positive “non-blaming” comments about venerable Janet, as a show of positive trust and confidence in her character.
So what did Venerable Yvonne do? She threw our local realtors under the bus instead, suggesting that they exploited the ignorance of the unsuspecting nuns from another culture giving bad advice (why in the world would they do that?). She apologized profusely for being too trusting and naïve, for making “mistakes” (accidental mistakes) and then pleaded for help and guidance to do better in the future. That performance gave Gord McNeilly goosebumps…but it was a spontaneous public “performance” nonetheless, not reality.
To start with, these three women are university-educated, Yvonne having grown up in New Zealand obtaining a Masters degree in business, as well as experience in the international corporate world. The other two nuns received higher education in California.
Yvonne assured the Committee members that there was never any bad intent on the part of GWBI, just ignorance that was exploited by the locals. So much for not blaming people in an attempt to excuse oneself for not knowing local rules and cultural ways of doing things, apparently including business ways of doing things. Total hogwash!
I’m not sure how many of the MLAs bought that pretense of being naïve and ignorant, besides MLA Gord McNeilly, who lapped it up like a thirsty kitten with a saucer of milk – clearly having done NO research before attending the meeting, being incapable of commenting beyond his distracting virtue-signalling, which was both inappropriate, unhelpful, and totally unrelated to the reason why the nuns were called before the committee.
Neither McNeilly nor Hal Perry had a clue between them that there were very serious and totally legitimate issues that needed to be addressed. The only problem in McNeilly’s mind was our dismal lack of appreciation for them and all they represent and do for us and the world.
By the way, neither Liberal MLA sitting on the Special said a single word during the last Special Committee on Record Retention! They’re starting to look like a couple of lost souls standing on the bus station platform after arriving just a bit too late, missing the bus, watching the bus kick up dust as it leaves town, wondering it’s worth putting any effort into things anymore – it appears clear to me what answer they came up with.
Are the Buddhist nuns really that naïve about business dealings in our strange Western culture and were taken advantage of as a result of that ignorance? NO!
Venerable Janet – the person who wrote the email Cory read – owned a Real Estate company in the United States with her husband before shaving off her hair and becoming a Bliss and Wisdom Buddhist nun, then the Assistant-Abbess of GWBI in PEI.
I may not be able to provide uncontested evidence of bad motives with Janet’s real estate doings; however, I will be able to provide evidence of competence in her understanding of what she was doing – often AGAINST the advice of both local realtors and lawyers who were increasingly concerned about the decisions and direction the monks and nuns were both asking them to assist them with and/or willing to take on their own initiative.
I point this out not to in anyway let the lawyers and real estate agents off the hook regarding possible complicity and support for some pretty shady dealings. In my opinion, complaints should have been filed with the PEI Law Society by any number of lawyers who had at one time or another worked with GEBIS or GWBI as their legal council. I’ll deal with specific examples in future articles.
In some cases lawyers refused to do certain things that had been requested by the nuns and/or monks – regarding money transfers mostly; in other cases, lawyers were provided what I would call “red flag” information that should have been turned over to the proper legal authorities.
The idea that the monks and nuns paid high prices because they didn’t know what they were doing, or didn’t understand the intricacies of real estate deals (both those that are legal and those that are not-so-legal) is ridiculous, and easily countered by the documentary evidence.
There was an ambitious effort by the nuns and monks to buy as much land as possible as fast as possible from the very first day they landed in PEI, and they strategically sought out people and properties that were not on the market, knowing their “negotiating power” was in their deep pockets. Locals were bewitched with offers made to them that were “too good to refuse” (wasn’t that a famous line in a famous movie about quasi-coercive deal offers?) which ensured that the Bliss and Wisdom land acquisition process would get underway immediately.
As time passed, and more and more acquisitions were made, those remaining or unwilling to sell had fewer and fewer neighbours in their neighborhoods, so it wasn’t necessary to acquire remaining properties paying huge prices, in some cases at least, because the residents who were still living in those areas no longer wanted to live on streets with empty houses in dying communities.
Trying to reconcile (1) the fact that Venerable Janet had obviously been keeping her in the dark about financial matters despite her being the Director of Finance on the GWBI Board with, (2) the fact that venerable Janet was willing to put her in a very compromised position, having to try to answer for her actions to the Committee, was undoubtedly the cause of the unusually-long delay. She said she was trying to search her memories. She couldn’t find any.
I was really impressed with how Cory rode out the silent tension to get a response:
The presentation revealed that there is an obvious “divide” within GWBI – at least when it comes to information sharing between the Assistant Abbess and the members of the Board.
Knowing what I know about the entire situation (which you’ll know soon as well if you read subsequent articles) it appears to me that we are likely dealing with a divide along the following lines: (1) Sincere, down-to-earth, innocent and well-meaning nuns and monks who from the time they could talk were trained by the Bliss and Wisdom Buddhists in Taiwan to do what Buddhist monks and nuns in Taiwan within the various “groups” of socially-engaged Buddhists have been doing since the revival of Buddhism in Taiwan beginning in the late 1980s. This is the infamous 99% kept in the dark, and; (2) a far more seedy element at the top of Bliss and Wisdom’s global network of non-profit corporations, monasteries, schools, and for-profit businesses taking advantage of the power and wealth they have at their disposable in the absence of proper anti-fraud controls and measures being followed within the organization.
More about the origins of the style of Buddhism in a minute, but first another example of an exchange revealing a divide within the organization. I’ll set it up for you.
The Fu-chich group – Bliss and Wisdom Corporation – although not one of the more prominent of the main groups of Buddhists in Taiwan formerly, actually identified as one of the smaller groups, at least until recently, appears to now be positioning itself to be the principal organization of Buddhists in the world, with an aggressive campaign of both diaspora with mostly Taiwanese and Chinese Buddhist monks and nuns, and rapid growth through attraction and the assimilation of Sanghas not formally associated with Bliss and Wisdom as well.
We have a highly unusual situation with a powerful young woman leading this global franchise who has somehow decided – and is so far succeeding – to transfer massive amounts of wealth from Taiwan to PEI to establish Bliss and Wisdom’s global headquarters in PEI – without the local community back in Taiwan apparently knowing anything much about the questionable activities, controversies within Bliss and Wisdom Corporation, and dissentions within the monastic community of monks and nuns.
There are strict rules regarding celibacy for Buddhist monks and nuns, just like in Catholic monasteries, and the idea that a woman would become the leader of a male religious order of monks making a religious vow of celibacy seems incredulous. Many monks question the legitimacy of the transfer of power from Master Jih Chang to Master Zhenru, and it appears there may be some substance to those allegations.
GWBI and GEBIS California Connection with Bliss and Wisdom
Venerable Yvonne was adamant in her statements to the Standing Committee that GWBI is an independent corporate entity not connected with other Buddhist organizations or corporations such as GEBIS. That is not accurate.
There is indeed a Board of Directors for GWBI with officers holding official responsibilities, and the names of those individuals are available. Charitable organizations must file annual returns with the federal government which are public documents. I reviewed those returns for GWBI for each year filed. Although GWBI was incorporated in 2013, the first annual filing was in 2015.
One of the questions in that Charitable filing asks whether there is any affiliation with any other entity or corporation, and another asks about activity outside Canada. I thought I’d check to see how honest GWBI was in disclosing that it is entirely a global extension of the motherhouse monastery of Bliss and Wisdom nuns in Taiwan (both monasteries have the same Abbess – Venerable Rong).
With respect to the first question, consider the following response with the most recent available return (2018):
Same answer for the initial return in 2015.
It is important to note the VERY broad definition of “linked in a subordinate way” clarified in the guide with instructions on what information is expected and what the terms mean precisely:
You can’t get broader than saying that all that’s required to have to answer “yes” is that there is a relationship with an international organization that (despite having paperwork showing corporate autonomy within Canada) “… is, at least in some respects, in a subordinate position to a head body.” In at least some respects? More like “ALL respects!” GWBI is Bliss and Wisdom.
The CRA question about activities outside Canada requires completion of a separate schedule. GWBI – presumably the finance officer on the Board, Venerable Yvonne – indicated that it wasn’t applicable:
GWBI first came into being as a corporation in Canada in 2013. To my knowledge at least, there was no GWBI prior to that incorporation. I’ll explore connections with board members (they change from year to year) since 2013 for GWBI in a subsequent article, but for now it’s worth noting that despite being a newly formed corporation in Canada with charitable status, no significant activity nor public presence, no apparent source of revenue, other than donations, GWBI somehow had a significant cushion from the get-go.
GWBI was incorporated federally in Canada in 2013, but didn’t file until 2015. In that filing it said it wasn’t in any respect subordinate to an international organization and had no activity outside Canada:
Of the three GWBI nuns making the presentation to the Legislative Committee, two of them identified as having come to PEI from California. I wondered if GWBI was an organization that first registered in California and then Canada, so I checked the incorporation document database with the State Department. Sure enough, GWBI showed up, but surprisingly, it was incorporated in California AFTER it was incorporated in Canada, not before.
GWBI was incorporated in California on March 12, 2015 with the following address: 3209 PRODUCER WAY POMONA California, which I immediately plugged into Google Maps.
The
Google Map picture has a sign out front for GWBI alright; however, the
building looked just like the other factories surrounding it in an
Industrial Park, huge pharmaceutical manufacturing plants actually, so I
wondered whether it was just an “office” or an actual Buddhist
establishment.
I thought a close-up of the roof would confirm whether the same factory air conditioners were on that building as the other buildings in the neighbourhood. I jumped from Google Maps to Google Earth to get a clearer “bird’s-eye view” of the neighbourhood and roof on the Buddhist building, and to also see how Google Earth identified the building, which was “Buddhist temple”.
The building at 3209 Producer Way, Pomona, US does indeed appear to have lots of skylight windows on the roof, so it looks like a legitimate Buddhist complex of some kind to me. Was this GWBI’s doing?
I wondered if GWBI had bought and/or renovated that building, so I went hunting in the city archives. Nope, the building is not owned by GWBI, but by another Buddhist organization affiliated with Bliss and Wisdom:
I then checked on the origins of this Buddhist organization and discovered that it was incorporated way back in 1982, long before Bliss and Wisdom Corporation Inc. in Taiwan.
How GWBI – a global extension of Bliss and Wisdom – came to reside in the same building as the Great Enlightenment Lotus Society Inc. (GELS) was my next question, but that was taking me a little further down that particular rabbit hole than I wanted to go, so I dropped that line of inquiry and headed back up to the surface to try another rabbit hole (there’s so many with this Buddhist research).
I checked to see if maybe Bliss and Wisdom was also registered in California. Lo and behold… they are not only registered, they too are listed as residing at the same address as GELS and GWBI. Bliss and Wisdom was incorporated about two years after GWBI, on March 20, 2017, using the same 3209 Pomona address.
Bliss and Wisdom is still listed as an “Active” charitable organization – registered in California at that same address; however, GWBI’s incorporated status in California has since been dissolved.
Why did GWBI dissolve it’s incorporation in California earlier this year? Why did GWBI register in California in 2015 in the first place – never declaring any activity outside the country in its annual federal returns – then dissolve in 2020? This situation gives rise to a host of questions, but that’s another rabbit hole I’ll leave for someone else.
But wait! There’s more.
I then wondered: “If GWBI is the global extension of Bliss and Wisdom corporation inc. in PEI, and GEBIS is the global extension of Bliss and Wisdom corporation in PEI, and GWBI are in PEI in 2013 and then for some strange reason register in California in 2015….is there any possibility that GEBIS may also be registered in California? For some strange reason?” I figured I might as well check.
Go figure! The same address too.
GEBIS registered in California on May 27, 2016, a year after GWBI and almost a year before Bliss and Wisdom. So for at least a year, GWBI, GEBIS and Bliss and Wisdom were all sharing the same building in Pomona, California with the same mailing address.
So let’s recap: 3209 Producer Way, Pomona, California was (1) first the home of GWL up to 2015; then (2) the home of GWL + GWBI as of 2015; then (3) the home of GWL + GWBI + GEBIS as of 2016; then (4) GWL + GWBI + GEBIS + Bliss and Wisdom in 2017; (5) then GWL + GEBIS + Bliss and Wisdom as of February, 2020.
GEBIS was already incorporated federally in Canada when it registered in California in 2016, and like GWBI, made no mention of its activity in California in subsequent filings with the federal government.
As you can see – GEBIS remains “Active” in California:
With respect to the answer to the question concerning GEBIS not being in a subordinate position to an international organization in the same 2018 GEBIS return, I’m thinking that the wrong key was accidentally hit on the keyboard, and the error wasn’t detected before filing. Why? Because the minimum amount of due diligence would show that what GEBIS is telling the Canadian government is exactly the opposite of what it told the PEI Government when it registered in 2016:
When GEBIS registered in PEI in 2016, it was explicitly noted on the registration form filed with Government (the last sentence on the above form) that: “It [GEBIS] is an overseas operation of Bliss and Wisdom Monastery Corporation (BWMC) in Taiwan.”
And GWBI is also the overseas operation of Bliss and Wisdom Monastery Corporation (BWMC) in Taiwan – the Abbess of the Taiwan Bliss and Wisdom monastery of nuns is ALSO the Abbess of GWBI in PEI – Venerable Janet is only the Assistant Abbott standing in for Abbess Rong when she is in Taiwan at the Motherhouse – e.g., she apparently spends approximately 6 months of each year in PEI and 6 months in Taiwan [Master Zhenru spends 6 months in PEI as well, however, the other 6 months of her year is apparently spent in Bermuda].
GWBI and GEBIS each present as completely separate corporate entities, cooperating on some things, but completely unrelated to one another – as Venerable Yvonne emphasized to the Committee on Natural Resources and Sustainability members. That needs correcting.
GWBI and GEBIS not only have the same leader – Master Zhenru – they also shared the very same address as Bliss and Wisdom in California, although GWBI has since dissolved its incorporation in California for some reason, but Bliss and Wisdom and GEBIS are still both active in the US but neither report that activity to the federal government.
But here’s the real kicker: both GWBI and GEBIS were apparently incorporated in California by the same person A FULL YEAR APART from one another. How could that possibly happen if these two “overseas extensions” of Bliss and Wisdom Corporation Inc. are unrelated?
The following chart that I put together compares the page information submitted to the State of California as an attachment with the registration form first by (1) GWBI in 2015, and (2) by GEBIS a year later in 2016. See any similarities? They’re exactly the same, word for word:
Even the font and punctuation are identical in both filings. Whoever filed GWBI’s California incorporation in 2015 apparently also filed for GEBIS a year later, obviously using the same computer and software program, and the same lined paper.
CONCLUSION
Whether it is the nuns on the Island now: Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute (GWBI) and Compassion and Grace Institute (CGI); or the monks, Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society (GEBIS); or Chinese monks and nuns arriving here from China and coming under the umbrella of Bliss and Wisdom (Guan Yin Monastery and Compassion and Grace Institute), or any number of other Buddhist monasteries that are likely to be welcomed by Master Zhenru in the future, they are all members of the same Bliss and Wisdom family.
As members of the same Bliss and Wisdom corporation and family – notwithstanding the separate corporate entities here in Canada and PEI – the 3,000 acre limit stipulated within the Lands Protection Act should be strictly adhered to in this case. The Buddhists have far exceeded the allowable limit, and a planned divestiture of much of that land is the only acceptable legal remedy on a go-forward basis.
Does the Province have a “Secret” Agreement with Bliss and Wisdom?
The FOIPP documents on the Buddhists that I recently received from Bloyce Thompson had entire pages withheld, which I expected, but I also knew that I’d at least learn the names of some of the key players within government working on the Hopetown Corporation and Buddhist (GEBIS and GWBI) files.
I had a couple of questions in mind when I submitted that request for documents, namely:
- Who is really deciding what the Buddhist development plan will entail and what the Three Rivers Community will look like in 20 years?
- Is it the PEI Government?
- Or are those decisions yet to happen by the residents of Three Rivers and the Three Rivers Council, within the scope of the current development plan being crafted?
One document I did receive in that FOIPP raises questions about whether there is a negotiation and deal-making process secretly underway between the PEI Government and Bliss and Wisdom Corporation via its “overseas extension” (GEBIS).
If I was a councillor in Three Rivers I’d be asking for an explanation on this GEBIS Agreement and a copy to peruse!
Epilogue
If you’ve made it this far your head is probably swimming with questions. I’ve carved out what I will be doing in the days ahead and what I will leave for others. As I mentioned in the first episode, I’ll be working with a federal investigation also currently underway.
Every investigation is based on certain theories or hunches or suspicions – that’s what an investigation is, an exploration based on specific questions which are in turn based on very precise interests. Those interests are of course inspired by the personal desires and actions of people – they happen with motive, and proving that is no easy task.
Although I can’t yet prove it – or perhaps never will be able to, or perhaps will not even bother trying – I suspect that what is driving and fueling the relocation of Bliss and Wisdom’s Global Headquarters from Taiwan to PEI has to do with Master Zhenru taking Bliss and Wisdom in a new direction completely separate from other long-standing Buddhists traditions and groups, even loyalty with the Dalai Lama.
Some of these positions are also those of former Bliss and Wisdom monks in Taiwan which I’ve adopted based on the evidence they have provided in dozens of well-researched articles (although I have not independently verified every claim) and some have also been reported in the mainstream media in Taiwan, Tibet and beyond, so are certainly not just internet rumours, slander and fake news.
Master Zhenru did not appear to become the Master of Bliss and Wisdom in a completely legitimate manner; this seems evident from her complete lack of interest in establishing and nurturing a relationship with the Dalai Lama. It is a fact (reported in the Tibet Post) that a group of Bliss and Wisdom monks travelled to meet with the Dalai Lama with a list of specific concerns about Master Zhenru. The Tibet Post is not a rumour mill from what I can see, but again, not going down that rabbit hole, here at least:
“The Tibet Post, a tri-lingual newspaper, has an online readership of nearly 10 million per year from 2017, and maintains a general readership of between 500 and 10,000 online guests at any given time.[1] The initiative of an independent non-profit organisation, Tibet Post focuses on Tibet-related issues, closely following the developments inside Tibet as well as reporting on the activities and workings of the exile community’s democratic institutions.”
That these monks felt that they needed to travel to meet privately with the Dalai Lama to get his guidance on whether they should follow their hearts and consciences regarding the rule violations, and other irregular and allegedly scandalous behaviours of Master Zhenru, fearful that to do so might be a violation of their obedience to their Spiritual Guide shows the extent to which grown, intelligent, and I’m assuming otherwise entirely capable men, were emotionally, psychologically, and ultimately mentally-confused about what to believe by the constant cognitive dissonance they were experiencing and trying to reconcile within themselves. That kind of state is not self-induced, but is borne entirely from the poison environment in which they were living, of that I’m certain.
So no, Bliss and Wisdom is not a cult. It is a well-intentioned, socially-engaged legitimate global religious organization with (I suspect) almost all of the monks and nuns are the most sincere, kind, compassionate and peaceful people you’d ever meet. No, they love PEI and want to stay here, and I want them to stay here as well. Why would anyone doubt the pure sincerity of Venerable Yvonne’s words, unscripted and put on the official record of the PEI Legislature?
Venerable Yvonne can be entirely forgiven for coming to the defense of venerable Janet, but venerable Janet will ultimately have to speak for her own actions.
Venerable Yvonne indicated – without even being prompted – that all the problems associated with Zhenru since her becoming the successor of Master Jih Chang in 2004 stem from the fact that there are “old fashioned” monks who won’t catch up with the times and accept a woman as their Master – a lay woman not herself having went through the formal process of learning and discipline required to become a Buddhist nun, nor willing to shave off her hair as a show of humility and solidarity with the Buddhist nuns who revere her as a leader and model to imitate.
Concerns about Master Zhenru were all dismissed as vindictive and scurrilous slander on the internet, with no basis in fact, inspired by bad intentions of male chauvinist monks with intention to do harm to Master Zhenru and Bliss and Wisdom. It’s a lot more than that, and if that’s what all the nuns and monks are convinced is the truth, then they are indeed in a very vulnerable psychological predicament.
A final word to Venerable Yvonne:
“If you receive an email from Master Zhenru asking you to deny yourself access to the internet as a discipline for personal growth you might want to disregard that guidance. There will no doubt be further revelations about things that should have been in front of your eyes as the Director of Finance for GWBI which I suspect you’ll be learning about for the first time.”
https://kevinjarsenault.com/2020/09/09/who-are-gebis-and-gwbi-and-cgi-and-guan-yin-and/
WHO ARE GEBIS AND GWBI and CGI and Guan Yin and…?
PREAMBLE
Every Islander can tell you that there are Buddhist monks and nuns down East. Most would know that the Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society
(GEBIS) are monks (men) and now have a monastery with residences in
Heatherdale. This will be the centre for the international Buddhist men.
Islanders paying attention would also know there are Buddhist nuns living in a monastery in Brudenell. They are still at a temporary residence in Uigg as they transition to the new mega-monastery. They have one building with a 200 nun capacity filled so far.
A CTV article published on March 13, 2018 noted the number of monks and nuns who were living on the Island at that time, as well as the expansion plans in the works:
“It seems P.E.I. communities will continue to benefit from the monks’ charity work, as the number of monks on the island is expected to grow from 200 to about 800 at the monasteries in Heatherdale and Little Sands. [See: “‘Serenity and calm’: Buddhist monks find peace on Prince Edward Island.“]
I’m not exactly sure how those modest numbers turned into a mega-plan to buy and build and bring upwards of 30,000 Buddhists to PEI.
The monasteries are the ‘hives’ of the Buddhist community being formed in PEI – we see the hive, but we don’t see all the bees flying around the countryside (aka “Investor Class Immigrants”) who are not wearing brown robes, but are nonetheless the real movers and shakers behind the massive transfers of money and Buddhists. That’s material for later articles, and each issue will need to be dealt with separately for clarity’s sake. This is far too important not to be factually correct at every step.
With the provincial election in the Spring of 2019, and COVID-19 in early 2020, there really hasn’t been a lot of additional public information or news stories on the Buddhists in PEI. Just a lot of local chatter about the increasing amount of land, houses, buildings, equipment and other assets the monks and nuns have been purchasing at an alarming pace.
I suspect that’s about as much as most Islanders know about the Buddhists down East, other than they (1) wear burnt orange robes, (2) don’t have a lot of hair (neither the monks nor nuns); (3) they smile a lot, which is not a bad thing at all, unless you’re hiding something; (4) they wouldn’t harm a flea (or a lobster purchased at Sobeys for that matter); (5) they’ve hosted a few open houses for Islanders;(6) grew sunflowers galore; (7) they sometimes donate bread rolls to charities; and (5) they buy a lot of land and buildings….did I mention that already?
I suspect most Islanders when asked, “What d’ya really know about the Buddhists in Eastern PEI?” would give a blank stare wondering if it was trick question, and follow-up zingers like the following would just add head-scatchin and grimaces to the staring:
- How many Buddhist monks are living on the Island right now?
- How many Buddhist nuns?
- How many Buddhist parishioners?
- Are GEBIS and GWBI the male and female components of the same monastery or Religious Order or tradition? Like the Catholic (monks) and Trappistines (nuns) in Rogersville N.B. are the female and male wings of the Cistercian Monastic Order?
- Are plans to build other Buddhist monasteries in PEI in the works that Islanders have not yet heard anything about? If so, where are they to be built? If so, when?
- If Buddhists – Monks, Nuns and Parishioners – have plans to continue to acquire property and land to accommodate between 20-30,000 Buddhist immigrants, who gave approval to this plan? The provincial government? If so, why have Islanders heard nothing about this plan, but whenever the word Buddhist has been mentioned its’: “Hush!….and stop being racist!” from Government?
- How many new Buddhist groups are planning to come to PEI?
Residents of Eastern PEI communities could add a substantial number of additional questions to the above list I’m sure. Questions that should have been answered years ago in public meetings in their communities. It appears that core democratic process was totally eclipsed in this instance, as were the residents, who were led to believe one thing (a couple of monasteries with a couple of thousand Buddhist monks and nuns) as they were left in the dark and now are slowly piecing together that something else entirely has been happening all around them all along. And here we are…it’s enough to make a person want to show up next Monday at the Three Rivers town council meeting with the four-way flashers on!
It’s not too late for residents to have that democratic discussion about what Three Rivers and surrounding areas wants for their future. That’ s why it is important to establish that there has been an egregious violation of the Lands Protection Act with the Government and IRAC accepting the corporate facade that they are separate organizations and corporate entities when they are, in fact, all representing the one and same direction and will of the parent organization.
1. What’s the Real Plan?
Without getting into details, the Buddhists have purchased several subdivisions, including commercial buildings. Who is the owner of the Riverhouse Inn? The address for the Inn is now the address for Hopetown Corporation. With the apartment buildings purchased in those subdivisions…is it the intention of the Buddhist owners to fill those apartment buildings with new Buddhists from Taiwan and China?
Will the new owners of those sections of existing communities advertise available apartments to Islanders and welcome diversity, as other landlords in PEI? Or are we witnessing a quiet take-over, an acquisition of a valuable asset that PEI no longer has control over?
A number of people I’ve spoken to from areas close to the Monks and Nuns say they are friendly and nice and all, but that the monks and nuns clearly have no real interest in integrating into PEI society. Fair enough I suppose – they’re monks and nuns after all, but what kind of sense does that make for an immigration policy and strategy?
For an immigration strategy to be based on bringing thousands of people who have absolutely no interest in contributing to the Island way of life, culture or economy [Over and above the contribution they obviously make by virtue of being a pretty big ‘bubble’ within our society and economy] is actually quite shocking.
Who stormed into Cabinet (under Ghiz, when he and MacLauchlan, and Frank Zhou started the PNP China Syndrome in the mid-2000’s) with a ‘Eureka’ idea to bring thousands of immigrants to PEI with: (1) no interest or intention of working directly in the Island economy as employees, (2) no intention of ever starting businesses or hiring Islanders; (3) they wouldn’t pay property taxes or payroll taxes to contribute to the free health services, roads, fire services, or other public services they benefit from, and (4) they’d bring in hundreds of people from Taiwan through the federal temporary foreign worker program (parishioners) to then volunteer to build their new buildings, operating large equipment and/or doing work that could otherwise be done by local Island workers? Who?
Despite all the unavoidable local contract work and purchase of local material supplies (cement can’t be imported) the monks and nuns are apparently importing more than their own workers. They are bringing in building materials, household goods, food, etc. and own a fleet of ‘containers’ parked at one of their properties for shipments back and forth to Taiwan.
You will see in future articles how GEBIS, GWBI, Hopetown Inc., and other corporate entities are all interconnected and serving the same plan and purpose evident in particular transactions and exchanges. The common purpose of the hive comes from the queen – in this case, Master Zhen Ru – to whom they all bestow veneration and allegiance as members of the organization she directs as unquestioned leader. She is the ‘parent’ in the parent organization to which all the Buddhists settling in Eastern PEI belong as her children, all participating in the same family resettlement plan, but we Islanders have heard nothing about any of that until now. This will be the subject material of my next episode – PEI Buddhists and Bliss and Wisdom.
Given the sheer magnitude of the many projects currently underway and mega plans Islanders know very little about – shockingly, even the residents in the areas that will be directly impacted – it is imperative that things be put on hold until some fundamental questions are answered by the province, not least of which is whether (and for how long) they have been aware of these long-term plans and whether there has ever been any endorsement and/or approval of these plans by the PEI Government – current or former.
Think about it. Would you uproot from the land of your birth and relocate the global headquarters of your worldwide organization on the other side of earth all on a wing and a Buddhist prayer? When billions of dollars are at stake?
Yet progress with those long-term plans are surely but steadily materializing in PEI, almost with a quiet, determined confidence that they will be realized, but all happening little by little, almost inconspicuously, seemingly under some imperceptible cloak of secrecy, without so much as a word from the PEI government about its decision to adopt this particular immigration strategy rather than one focused on, let’s say, bringing young entrepreneurs who want to farm. As you will see in a future article – the answer lies at least in part in the connections between Ghiz, Zhou, MacLauchlin, the Buddhists, and all those wealthy “investor class” Buddhist parishioners funnelling so much money to PEI.
I’ll provide some answers to a few of the above questions in this series of articles, but it is important to clarify the nature of this investigative series – what I aim to accomplish and what I am not going to investigate.
2. First We Need “What” Answers: “Why” Answers Will Come Later
There’s lots of speculation about the monks being everything from a cult to a front for the communist government. I suspect that kind of “wondering out loud” happening around the water cooler, teacher’s lounge, or potato grader will only intensify as this important issue takes on a public and political life in coming weeks and months.
It’s completely understandable that whenever big secrets have been kept for years, then start to be revealed, there is a tendency to jump to conclusions that explain everything – motives – so we can make sense out of all the details and facts we’re learning about by putting them in a much bigger – but completely unproven – context. Dozens of people contact me always with the same question, no matter what the particular secret scandal being revealed – “WHY?”
That won’t be the approach I’ll be taking in this series. Answers to why questions will have to wait. Why? I told you, you’ll have to wait.
On one of my first days on campus at McGill University I learned an important lesson from the professor who would become my thesis advisor. We were having a casual conversations and he asked me how I was liking Montreal so far. “I find people in Montreal are….” he interrupted: “Stop…anything else you say is meaningless.” I was a bit taken aback, then he added, “You mean to say that you find ‘SOME’ people in Montreal….”
It’s amazing how fast we allow our mind’s eye to move from (1) getting a bit of factual evidence or perhaps just unverified hearsay) about a few people from a particular ethnic or racial background, or even a ‘place’ and generalizations about people we don’t know at all. The difference between making statements or claims based on such generalizations and making particular claims based on evidence is the difference between fiction and fact.
My approach will avoid such generalizations and assumptions. Such imaginings and speculations can give rise to “possible” explanations, with hunches that may indeed prove to be on the right path to truth. In such cases, however, such speculations generating ‘leads’ from some basic facts and initial connections need to be verified with evidence, requiring formal or legal investigations to determine whether those hunches have any true merit. This series just deals with the known facts from circumstantial, or ‘documentary’ evidence.
3. “My Apologies – I Thought You Were a Buddhist”
Before I get into the actual factual details of the Buddhist investigation I want to discuss how we need to be aware of how our propensity to ‘generalize’ about things we don’t fully know (but want to understand) seriously complicates our natural desire to make sense out of all things Buddhist on a go-forward basis.
We need to proceed with caution, humility and precision…always sensitive to the ‘particular’ within the implicit context of our likely seriously-skewed preconceived notions that form the initial context for understanding and making sense of those particular facts.
Not every Asian living in PEI is a Buddhist. I doubt that Islanders living in Summerside or even Charlottetown would ever even assume such an association with an Asian person they might happen to see or meet at the market or on the street. Transplant that same Asian to Eastern PEI and I suspect that’s exactly what the immediate ‘assumption’ or association would be in Montague or Brudenell or Heatherdale or any number of other areas where Buddhists monks, nuns and parishioners are living and/or purchasing property. This is unfortunate.
There are many Chinese, Taiwanese and other Asians living in PEI who have no association with the Buddhist living here whatsoever. Without having crunched the numbers, it’s safe to say the vast majority of Chinese and Taiwanese immigrants who came to PEI through the PNP program heyday years would be as follows: (1) Wealthy Investor Class immigrants nominated by Frank Zhou (Given pretty much exclusive control of the immigration of Investor classes from those areas by former Premier Ghiz, MacLauchlan and now Premier King) and (2) all other Asian immigrants coming through other PNP streams (worker class, express entry, etc.) the federal family-reunification program, refugees, spouses of Islanders, etc.
So let’s not assume someone who is Asian and living in PEI is a Buddhist. If we want or need to know, we should ask.
Which brings me to the need for us not to generalize about Buddhists.
4. The Buddhists are….
Like most organizations and societies, the vast majority of members belong for the most noble of reasons. I wouldn’t assume that any single monk, nun or parishioner – many who have family members who are either nuns or monks. students, volunteers, or are otherwise associated with GEBIS and GWBI – were personally involved with any illegal activities. The monks and nuns are no doubt largely oblivious to the high-level decisions related to the Bliss and Wisdom Buddhist plans to establish its world headquarters in PEI. When the movers and shakers say ‘sign here’ to a monk or nun and they then become the owner of a brand spanking new piece of PEI, that’s just something they do in obedience to their superiors and likely sign without question.
It is impossible to get an exact number of monks at GEBIS and Nuns at GWBI or Monks and Nuns at CGI, not to mention Guan Yin, because that number is fluid and ever increasing. Things have changed since the restrictions on international travel from COVID-19 a little more than a 1/2 year ago, but before that there was as a steady stream of nuns, monks, and parishioners back and forth from PEI, as anyone taking a plane out of the Charlottetown airport would know from seeing first-hand the passenger manifestos.
To my knowledge, no one is tracking the numbers, with people coming with all different types of visa status ranging from student, temporary foreign worker, visitor permit, etc. Like the North Shore tide that imperceptibly ebbs in and out as the waves wash back and forth, it’s hard to know exactly when it happened, but when the tide finishes going out again, there’s somehow always more stuff on the beach than when the tide was in.
Buddhists all venerate the Buddha, but there are different schools and traditions, just as there are different religious traditions that all claim Abraham as ‘father’ (Judaism; Islam; and Christianity). This will be explained in more detail the next article.
There are apparently additional Buddhist monasteries planned for PEI, one by a group referred to as CGI which has approximately 500 Buddhists currently living in PEI waiting for this to happen. These Buddhists are not from Taiwan, but from mainland China. The CGI woman are currently at the Lobster Shanty and many other locations in three rivers, some apparently cramped in an old senior’s home.
A fourth monastery has been incorporated (federally in 2016, with head office in Stratford, PE) called the Guan Yin Monastery. Hopetown Corporation, which just recently received approval from the King Government to purchase 504 acres has a director with the same address as the head office of Guan Yin Monastery’s corporate address.
The application to purchase the 504 acres as submitted to IRAC clearly stated that the purpose was to build a residential development. Despite the land being ‘agricultural land’, it was nonetheless APPROVED by the King Government with a condition that it not be developed!
After the fact, Minister Bloyce Thompson confirmed in a media interview that the land was destined for residential development. For what purpose are the movers and shakers with the Buddhists building subdivisions sprawling 500 acres exactly? That’s about the size of Montague.
That’s all I want to say about the current status of Buddhists in PEI here -I only want to give some sense that the Monks and Nuns have different names and incorporation in Canada, and actually originate from different places (china or Taiwan mostly) but are completely ‘interconnected’ and operate as one corporate entity on a number of levels – at least as far as the Lands Protection Act is concerned.
Despite the differences between the different groups of Buddhist monks and nuns, including where they originate from (China or Taiwan) there is one thing that makes them all the same at a ‘corporate’ or ‘body’ level – they all venerate the same Master, follow the same Buddhist tradition, and are united in their common identity as members of Bliss and Wisdom.
Master Zhen-Ru is not only the head of the parent corporation for all the different groups of monks and nuns and their affiliated corporations, charities and school;, she is the spiritual ‘parent’ who has the final say over what happens, as well as control over billions of dollars being funnelled to and used by the Buddhist monks on the Island.
Master Zhen-Ru has never made a public appearance in PEI. She lives here half the year and half the year in Bermuda, but no one apparently knows where she is when. How do you spell subpoena???
Summary
To understand the Buddhist monks and nuns in PEI we need to cut through the largely convenient and customary difference they’ve presented to us and see them all as members of Bliss and Wisdom, the “parent” and controlling corporation based in Taiwan.
That body has one and only one Director and Shareholder. How a Chinese female national became the Master of the Bliss and Wisdom Buddhist organization based in Taiwan now claiming over 100,000 followers (mainly in Taiwan and China) is a fascinating story which sheds some light [but also raises many more questions] and will be the topic of the next episode.
I have received a number of messages of concern from people about the upcoming Three Rivers Town Council meeting next Monday evening. There’s apparently a show of ‘concern’ being organized as people having one or more are being asked to show up at 6 pm with their 4-way flashers on. I would encourage anyone with concerns to show up and express them.
I personally can’t imagine council approving the building permit with so many unanswered questions – and not trivial questions either!
Town councillors should be talking to Premier King, who hails from the heart of Three Rivers, given that the PEI Government has the same information that I have, and there have been illegal activities. Government has had that information since last November, but have kept that secret and continued to approve further development and expansion (the Hopetown Corporation approval to purchase Executive Council Order was issued by Government months after the King Government learned of the scandalous activity).
I would suggest that residents consider asking Three Rivers Town councillors whether they have yet asked Minister Bloyce Thompson – our Attorney General and Minister of Agricultural and Land – what was in that particular document he held up while gathered around a kitchen table discussing Buddhist land-grabbing tactics in Eastern PEI with his Deputy Minister and local MLA Cory Deagle at a local resident’s home last November that brought his exclamation: “There’s your smokin’ gun right there!”
It would be very imprudent for council to approve any further Buddhist developments before learning a little more about that smokin’ gun.
https://kevinjarsenault.com/2020/12/06/putting-down-roots/
MONKILEAKS EPISODE #6: PUTTING DOWN ROOTS
PREAMBLE
You’ll be happy to hear that I’m going to honour my commitment to give you a short, but important, part of the picture concerning Bliss and Wisdom in PEI…no more mini-books.
This series has captured the attention of two significant audiences: one in PEI; the other in Taiwan. The PEI audience is mostly comprised of Island residents living in Eastern PEI; the Taiwanese audience is Bliss and Wisdom monks, nuns and laity who likely wouldn’t be able to find PEI on a map.
There are quite different perspectives and interests with each audience; so much so, that the very same information is likely to be shocking to both audiences for entirely different reasons.
Take this episode, for example, which focuses on the PEI property and land purchases of Master Zhenru and her family. It has a short introduction, then provides (1) a family tree, identifying members of Master Zhenru’s immediate family and her powerful landlord; (2) information concerning Bliss and Wisdom’s secretive Global Headquarters, where Master Zhenru lives inside a house inside a complex like two Russian dolls, tucked cozily in the woods of Eastern PEI behind a steel gate; and (3) Geolinc charts of the PEI land and property holdings, as well as some corporate connections of Master Zhenru and some info on the family members who now own a chunk of PEI.
Introduction
Since it’s been a while since my last article in this series, let’s begin by summing up a few of the most important insights and understandings about Master Zhenru and Bliss and Wisdom published in that last episode.
- GWBI and GEBIS – although each are incorporated in Canada – are one and the same with Bliss and Wisdom. They represent “global extensions” of Bliss and Wisdom Corporation, Inc.
- Monks and nuns in PEI (GWBI, GEBIS, Compassion and Grace Institute, etc.), as well as Bliss and Wisdom laity, all regard themselves as part of the same monastic family, and all regard Master Zhenru as their spiritual leader;
- Monks and nuns in PEI follow the same teachings and rule as their Bliss and Wisdom counterparts in Taiwan;
- Monks and nuns in PEI are part of the Bliss and Wisdom development plan for the relocation of their Headquarters from Taiwan to PEI;
- Monks and nuns in PEI all draw from the same pool of donations coming from the same Bliss and Wisdom followers (laity). Those funds are expended in support of the same development projects; and 100% of Bliss and Wisdom’s revenue source is donations.
Bliss and Wisdom followers outside of PEI have about the same degree of information concerning what Bliss and Wisdom is up to in Prince Edward Island as Islanders have about what Bliss and Wisdom is doing in Taiwan. In fact, Islanders didn’t realize that the Buddhists coming to PEI are all Bliss and Wisdom monks and nuns until very recently.
Similarly, PEI residents know very little about the rules and expectations of the culture of the Bliss and Wisdom Buddhist family in Taiwan. We know next to nothing of the dynamic relationships and cultural norms and practices that hold this Buddhist family together in community, accountable both to those rules and expectations, and to one another.
Islanders are primarily concerned about the Buddhists buying PEI land. I suspect Taiwanese followers could care less if Master Zhenru and her family buy land in PEI – unless they found out it was with donations designated for the monastery that is being constructed back in Taiwan, a “mega-monastery” to hold over 1,000 monks.
No, Buddhists in Taiwan are likely to be far more concerned with what all those individual land purchases by Master Zhenru says about the likelihood that their leader is putting down roots in PEI and ain’t coming home anytime soon!
Islanders were led to believe that the Buddhist monks and nuns were going to simply build a couple of monasteries in PEI. No one ever imagined that the monks and nuns were part of an international organization with over 100,000 lay followers, many who would be interested in PEI from afar as investors, others anxious to come play on our Island (then buy a bunch of it).
The information in this article will be of significant concern to Islanders when they see the total acreage already purchased by just this one powerful Buddhist family. There are many others!
The purchase of so much property by people “cloistered” and supposedly living simple lives of prayer makes no sense to Islanders. It raises major red flags about what is really behind the plans of the Buddhists. It makes Islanders wonder what will be in store for the future of PEI if those ambitions are left unchecked.
Bliss and Wisdom followers in Taiwan may not be aware that Master Zhenru and her family are putting down some pretty deep roots in PEI.
Zhenru is the leader of Bliss and Wisdom, an international network of affiliated manifestations or “international extensions” of Bliss and Wisdom, with incorporated entities in over 50 countries throughout the world: Home base was always Taiwan, and my sense is that Bliss and Wisdom followers in Taiwan expect that to continue to be the case.
There are many other incorporated monasteries (Compassion and Grace Institute; Guam Yin; etc.) and charitable organizations (Moonlight International, etc.) registered in PEI as independent corporate entities (declaring no affiliation with an International organization in their annual Charitable Tax Returns), but are all members of Bliss and Wisdom Corporation Inc., all drawing from the same pool of donations (from parishioners in Taiwan mostly), all part of the same Master-(Zhenru)-plan to establish global headquarters for Bliss and Wisdom Corporation Inc. in PEI.
After my last article was published, I was contacted by several former Bliss and Wisdom monks, each living in three different countries: Argentina, the United States, and Taiwan. The monk from Taiwan wrote a long, detailed, well-referenced, and VERY informative letter offering to assist me with the research on a go-forward basis. Amazing!
I asked for a photo of a name that I can’t pronounce properly, and 10 minutes later I’m downloading it, then uploading and importing it into an article (this one). Thanks immensely to “you know who you are” [a good Buddhist Bud of mine now, who will remain anonymous, for what I hope you’ll agree are reasons that don’t need to be provided].
One paragraph in his email was of particular importance. It corroborated the same sense I had (which I’m still investigating), that there is GREAT confusion about what Master Zhenru and Bliss and Wisdom are planning for the future, not only in PEI apparently, but back home in Taiwan as well.
To be clear, Master Zhenru is not a nun and is not subject to vows of obedience or poverty. In fact, none of the people I’m putting on her immediate family tree in this episode are Buddhist monks and nuns. They haven’t taken a vow of poverty and are free to purchase property as far as Buddhist rules go, which many of them have done with gusto.
I put together this family tree to help keep things straight…visuals are so important; names, especially Chinese names are easier to remember when attached to a face.
I have yet to find a name for Master Zhenru’s father (who also lives in PEI now) so was I unable to determine what (if any) property he owns in PEI.
Master Zhenru’s birth mother apparently died many years ago and Zhenru has a step-mother living in PEI; however, I could neither locate her name nor photo, so I’m unsure of whether she also has PEI property holdings.
Master Zhenru’s brother Frank doesn’t apparently own anything. He’s a total mystery to me, but I put him on the tree so he wouldn’t feel left-out.
Master Zhenru and Family’s PEI Land Holdings
Master Zhenru apparently lives in the Caribbean somewhere for 6 months of the year, and in PEI for the other 6 months. When she is in PEI, she doesn’t stay with the GWBI nuns, she has her own “condo” built inside a huge complex where she lives with a very close-knit group of “Marco monks” and two full-time personal attendants (I will explain more about Marco monks in a subsequent article).
I made an attempt to get a picture of the Bliss and Wisdom Headquarters and home to Master Zhenru close to the monastery. Unfortunately, it’s a gated complex, so not interested in girl guide cookies or trick-or-treaters on Halloween.
I then went to Google Earth to see what a bird’s-eye view would reveal. The resolution isn’t great, but the cars in the parking lot behind the main building provide a good gauge to get an accurate sense of the size and scope of the buildings.
What goes on in this complex? This is where the queen bee lives, and like a hive full of honey bees, the queen has special attendants. There are a small group of monks, including Venerable Walter Tsai, brother of Venerable Yvonne Tsai, the GWBI Financial Director who appeared before the Legislative Committee on Natural Resource and Sustainability. Apparently there are offices and files and big safes and all the things you would expect in the Headquarters of an international organization like Bliss and Wisdom.
So let’s get to what this royal family owns, starting with the General.
PEI Property Holdings of Jeh Jow Lu
Master Zhenru’s dwelling and the Headquarters for GEBIS (but really Bliss and Wisdom Corporation Inc.) is located at 2628 Heatherdale Rd. in Eastern PEI, and is owned by Mr. Lu.
Mr. Lu is one of three powerful Bliss and Wisdom Laity who work closely with Master Zhenru running the entire Global Bliss and Wisdom Corporation. These key players are nestled together at the top of the global corporate hierarchy. They are involved with all the key decisions involving money, Bliss and Wisdom development, and corporate activity in the world. They either own or direct many of the particular corporations with Master Zhenru.
I’ll discuss the other two “amigos” in a subsequent article, but I’ll consider Mr. Lu in this article because I consider him to be part of Master Zhenru’s immediate “family” – not by blood, but by virtue of the fact that he (1) owns Master Zhenru’s home inside the GEBIS Headquarters (which he also owns); (2) he’s rooting Bliss and Wisdom with all his corporate connections in PEI; and (3) his lofty status as a member of the global trinitarian governance structure atop the pinnacle of Bliss and Wisdom.
Mr. Keh Jow Lu is the Secretary-General of Bliss and Wisdom, and also the President of GEBIS corporation. He is also a director of Tse-Xin Organic Farming Development Foundation in Taiwan. That’s the money-making machine for Bliss and Wisdom, and it would appear that the aim is to replicate that model in PEI with Grain Essence and Leezen corporations (essentially global extensions of Tse-Xin and Leezen parent corporation in Taiwan).
Mr. Key Jow Lu is in charge of the Buddhist laity in PEI, which gives some idea of how “laity” are indeed a level or foundational part of the Bliss and Wisdom Corporation.
Lu is uniquely positioned to not only know about, but to have a hand in all the purchases and business endeavors of GEBIS, GWBI, Guan Yin, CGI, Moonlight, Hopetown, Grain Essence, Leezen, etc., I can see why they call him the “General”.
He’s the guy the PEI Government should be asking to appear before Legislative Standing Committees, not young nuns who can only speak about needing to learn more about our customs and ways ( Despite having advanced University degrees from Western universities in North America), wanting direction and guidance, being sorry for being naïve and making lots of bad decisions on bad advice, etc….Mr. Lu would be able to actually answer questions.
Did I mention that Mr. Lu is also a director of Splendid Essence, and President of Grain Essence Garden Inc., [formerly “Wheat Essence Gardening”], a vegetarian restaurant in Charlottetown?
Master Zhenru was apparently once listed as the owner of Splendid Essence Restaurant, as well as a director of Grain Essence; however, this changed around the time of the IRAC investigation.
When Zhenru’s name was removed from the corporate documents, it was Mr. Lu, the General, who became the owner, on paper that is, but of course nothing really changed in the real world, as you are hopefully starting to see, given that Grain Essence belonged to Bliss and Wisdom when it was first incorporated, just as it belongs to Bliss and Wisdom now.
Despite ownership shifting from the Master Zhenru (Lu’s tenant) to General Lu (Zhenru’s landlord) along the way, we’re still talking about the same house.
Mr. Lu owns more than just these commercial ventures and Bliss and Wisdom (GEBIS) Headquarters, as you can see from the following list of parcels from GeoLinc listing Mr. Lu as the owner:
A summary of Mr. Jeh Jow Lu’s property holdings is as follows:
4 houses, part-owner of a fifth house; owns two building lots; and owns 73.4 acres of farmland in Heatherdale.
He is also the President of Splendid Essence Restaurant and likely lots more, but let’s move on:
You’ll notice that “Leezen” is the trade name for Grain Essence. As mentioned this in a previous episode and noted above, Mr. Lu et. al. via Grain Essence and Leezen in PEI may have far more interest in PEI’s land the Buddhists have led us to believe.
Leezen presents itself in Prince Edward Island as something akin to a mom and pop corner store doing some exporting. With assets as high as 22 million Canadian and a shipping network on every continent, it’s a little more than that.
We’d better keep our eyes on all that land we’ve been wondering why monks and nuns would be purchasing, puzzled as to what use they have for it, being monks and nuns and all…. We neglected to factor in the Buddist followers.
I hope you’re starting to
appreciate how the big concern with the Buddhists lies with the lay
followers, not the monks and nuns. The laity were not mentioned in the
original plan, and are now appearing to be the bodies inside the “trojan
horse” monasteries that Islanders allowed in. They’ve been dropping
from hatch in the horse’s belly ever since, buying up assets paying
premium prices, and launching new Canadian (not PEI) corporations like there was no tomorrow.
Secretary-General Lu knows
how to profit from what can be extracted from dedicated followers
willing to give free labour, and can rapidly expand the wealth and power
of Bliss and Wisdom as a result. That wealth and power is now expanding
in PEI, but it is not being shared with Prince Edward Islanders or our
economy to circulate and enrich us here… The supply chains are with
Asian countries.
PEI Property Holdings of Master Zhenru
As I mentioned, the IRAC investigation occasioned “paper changes” with some of the names on corporate documents now obscuring Master Zhenru’s involvement in Bliss and Wisdom corporations she was previously formally and publicly listed as owning. I have not yet acquired all those original registration documents to provide a comprehensive list.
If IRAC hadn’t stopped making the reports from investigation public some time ago, Islanders like me would be able to get more information that might shed some light on exactly what IRAC investigated about the Buddhists, why they investigated the Buddhists in the first place, and what the outcome of that investigation was….I don’t recall any Guardian or CBC story, nor Eastern Graphic coverage; however, can’t say I read enough to be sure I didn’t miss it.
Following is a list of the properties in PEI owned by Master Zhenru:
Master Zhenru owns 1 house (it is not the house she lives in) and 645 acres of PEI farmland.
PEI Property Holdings of Menqui Jin (Mandy)
Master Zhenru and siblings were born and raised in China. Her sister Menghui Jin worked formerly as a reporter for the Chinese Communist Party.
You may recall that some provinces recently put the kybosh to their relationship with Confucius Institutes, following revelations raising concerns about the spreading of Communist Chinese Party propaganda.
Just last year, New Brunswick ended a 10-year relationship with the Institute (See: “New Brunswick turfs China-backed Confucius Institute out of elementary schools to curb Beijing’s influence.”)
Mandy Jin founded the “Lan Ruo Academy” and is a leading spokesperson. She gave a talk in Toronto last week on Confucianism to over 1,000 people.
There’s also a connection between Mandy Jin and Hopetown Corporation Inc.
Hopetown was in the news a while back you may recall – and I wrote a couple of articles as well – as a result of its purchase of 504 acres Executive Council approved for development (although an “identification” was placed on the approval saying it couldn’t be developed for 10 years).
Mandy Jin’s husband, Pengfei Zhao, is the owner of Aranya Hotel Investment and Management Ltd.
Take a look at the lots comprising the Hopetown package that was sold:
All of the red in the photo on the right is the Hopetown package.
PEI Property Holdings of Menghua Jin (Ruby)
Master Zhenru’s sister Ruby owns just one lot in PEI totalling 48.8 acres:
Conclusion:
What’s the point of all this? To show what previous articles have shown generally: how the commercial activities of Buddhists involving purchases of land and buildings in PEI under different individual parishioner names, and various corporations, are all intricately interconnected. They’re all set on serving the same development project’s financial goals involving the purchase and build of the new global headquarters for Bliss and Wisdom.
I said at the outset that Taiwanese Bliss and Wisdom laity, monks and nuns may or may not be fully aware of what is going on in PEI. I’ve heard conflicting stories from different sources, both of whom should know, so I’m thinking some Taiwanese monks, nuns and laity know something of what’s going on, but most probably know next to nothing.
Islanders should be very concerned with the tentacles reaching further and further into different areas and aspects of PEI life by the day. There are countless new initiatives and corporations getting involved in buying and controlling more and more of our Island.
Like a rock being dropped in a glass of water, to the extent that the Buddhists acquire, assimilate or otherwise gain control over property, land and economic activity that’s part of our local economy, we will have exactly that much less of what was PEI for the future. The model they are following is one of “displacement” – not multicultural social integration. They don’t even teach the kids English in the school! I see no Island names on any documents, other than “sales” agreements, with Islanders being the sellers, and Buddhists are not asking for business partners from PEI.
If Hopetown Corporation Inc. gets developed into a huge residential subdivision, it will undoubtedly be designed by and for Buddhists.
There is little awareness of what’s really going on with the Buddhists among the PEI general population; there is no easy access to information with the continued blocks from the PEI Government; no disclosure of insightful information by the Government; and no real oversight or proper “checks and balances” monitoring this extensive expansionist activity.
The few people getting attention in this episode are all Bliss and Wisdom lay members in Master Zhenru’s family.
Stay tuned….my next episode will reveal to monks and nuns back in Taiwan what “taking a vow of poverty” with Bliss and Wisdom looks like in PEI. I’ll be providing charts listing the extensive land holdings of individual Bliss and Wisdom Venerables with GWBI and GEBIS.
Scott MacKenzie: WHAT WE DO WITH LAND AT IRAC IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!
PREAMBLE
Before saying anything about the pathetic appearance of IRAC’s CEO and Chair Scott MacKenzie and Vice-CEO Doug Clow at the Legislative Standing Committee on Natural Resources and Sustainability yesterday [February 18, 2021], I want to first remind you that I have already provided definitive proof that:
“In 2015, IRAC was made aware that a powerful individual – General Lu – paid (in cash) the property taxes for FOUR separate Buddhist corporations and an undisclosed number of Buddhist nuns, monks and laypersons who had purchased land. IRAC conducted a multi-year investigation into that matter in secret, then apparently closed the file in 2019 with no penalties for what clearly appears to me to be fraud.”
Scott MacKenzie and Doug Clow appeared at the Committee yesterday with one goal in mind: say not a single word about that investigation into the Buddhists, not even acknowledging that it ever even took place. And that’s what happened: Mackenzie pleaded the 5th degree, to the 9th degree!
I first broke the story about IRAC’s Buddhist investigation last November and December in two successive episodes of my Monkileaks investigative series, however, I didn’t provide a lot of detail about it at that time, focusing on how the nuns had circumvented the Lands Protection Act while under investigation by IRAC, and the failure of IRAC to make anything of that investigation public knowledge:
“When IRAC began an investigation into GEBIS and GWBI in 2015-16, there was a ‘freeze’ on any further land purchases. GWBI purchased a large property in Brudenell during that time with the names of 5 parishioners (laypeople) to avoid IRAC application, which was explicitly stated as the purpose of purchasing that way…to evade IRAC.” [Zhenru: Master of Bliss and Wisdom Buddhists, November 13,2020].
“If IRAC hadn’t stopped making the reports from the investigation public some time ago, Islanders like me would be able to get more information that might shed some light on exactly what IRAC investigated about the Buddhists, why they investigated the Buddhists in the first place, and what the outcome of that investigation was….I don’t recall any Guardian or CBC story, nor Eastern Graphic coverage; however, can’t say I read enough to be sure I didn’t miss it.” [Monkileaks: “Putting Down Roots,” December 6, 2020].
I provided a significant amount of additional detail in a more recent article, a section of which I reproduce in the summary of this article.
I believe the evidence that spurred that 2015-2019 IRAC investigation was information that multiple corporate entities were being used by one corporate entity – Bliss and Wisdom Inc. based in Taiwan – to acquire land acreage FAR EXCEEDING THE CORPORATE LAND LIMITS stipulated in the Lands Protection Act.
Mum’s the Word at Committee
None of the above information about the Buddhists was mentioned – or even allowed to be mentioned – by the Committee members, as per a stern warning from Scott MacKenzie at the outset of the meeting.
When Chair Cory Deagle turned the floor over to MacKenzie for him to give a presentation, to be followed by questions, MacKenzie took the opportunity to first read a statement informing and warning the Committee members that they were at no time to ask anything of any significance about anything of any importance whatsoever!
Kudos to MLA and Chair of the Committee, Cory Deagle, for noting for the record the inappropriateness of MacKenzie lecturing the Committee for a very long time, as Cory pointed out, in fact, a longer period of time than the actual presentation:
On the pretense of being “totally independent,” this powerful public body that is supposed to serve Islanders is not only allowed to work in secret to cover-up what I believe is a MASSIVE violation of the Lands Protection Act that should result in the divestment of thousands of acres of land, it apparently ALSO forbids our elected representatives on all-Party legislative Committees from asking IRAC anything about that fraud and coverup!
That’s a system that has to change.
With the Spring sitting of the Legislative Assembly opening imminently, I really hope someone will put what I’ve already made public [but no one in the government or media have yet to mention] on the official public record – Hansard!
Scott Mackenzie brought two things to the committee: (1) loads of legalese, which, from all appearances, he used liberally to bully and intimidate the committee; and (2) NO useful or insightful information about anything.
MacKenzie was not about to allow so much as a crack to open. He knew full-well that a crack would quickly become a chasm into which he’d slide and from which he would not be able to escape.
Listen to the legalese from MacKenzie after Ms. Beaton’s seemingly innocent question concerning whether IRAC had ever investigated the Buddhists, saying nothing at all with a lot of words. However, the otherwise mute Mr. Clow appears to have nervously beat MacKenzie to the punch with a quick “no” response to Beaton’s question right off the bat, if you listen carefully. If indeed that is his voice saying “no” – well, that would be a big lie:
We are truly in an unbelievable and untenable situation with IRAC. This independent “quasi-judicial” body can not only refuse to provide any information to a Legislative Committee concerning a scandal that has already been made public but ignored by both government and media; it doesn’t even feel it needs to confirm to our elected officials that any investigation ever took place. That’s unacceptable.
But the zipper-mouthed resolve and what sounds like verbal abuse and bad manners to me didn’t stop there!
Ms. Beaton also wanted to know what would serve as a trigger for IRAC to begin an investigation. She asked if an issue that was in the news and of concern to many Islanders could trigger an investigation, and MacKenzie said it could. She then asked why IRAC did not start an investigation into the Brendel Farms land deal since the Lands Protection Act empowers IRAC to initiate such investigations on its own – which was a totally fair question – but MacKenzie went ballistic.
Listen to the brutal “shut-down” response MacKenzie vaulted at Beaton – on a question that was not in fact concerning “an investigation” at all, but rather WHY AN INVESTIGATION WAS NOT INITIATED BY IRAC WHEN IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN.
That was an entirely fair question. It didn’t compromise anyone’s privacy rights or IRAC’s status as an independent body. But MacKenzie had warned the Committee members not to ask him anything about anything important, so I guess he felt justified in pouring out his wrath on Beaton, falsely claiming that his hands were tied by law preventing him from answering her question. Complete nonsense!
Michelle asked one question about the Brendel Farms deal. Wow! Talk about touching a nerve.
Summary
I’m going to reproduce the section of my last Monklileaks article titled “Is this GUAN YIN Statue Still Part of the Buddhists’ Plan for PEI?,” published on January 28, 2021, to again present evidence supporting my belief that IRAC is currently engaged in a cover-up of a massive scandal regarding the Buddhists, and no one in Government apparently cares!
[Note: Still amazed that our “media” hasn’t considered Buddhist plans to build a statue of Guan Yin that’s more than 50 ft. higher than the Statute of Liberty plunked in the Buddha-nell River as newsworthy!]
Section from Previous Article
“I had mentioned in a previous article that the “General” was one of the powerful “three amigos” running the entire Bliss and Wisdom Inc. corporation and that he owns Master Zhenru’s PEI residence, as well as that huge complex that serves as the main headquarter offices for GEBIS and the hub of Bliss and Wisdom Inc.
I had also mentioned that it was the General who had issued that single cheque to pay the property taxes for those 5 Buddhist organizations and undisclosed number of Buddhists nuns, monks and followers, however, I didn’t offer any further details. I since learned that my earlier statement and claim was not entirely accurate. I’ll explain.
A good researcher never assumes anything, and I foolishly did exactly that when I said it was a single “cheque” that covered all those property taxes. They were paid with “cash”!
The following email from a lawyer to 2
of the 5 Buddhist corporations under investigation [Grain Essence and
Splendid Essence] outlined 4 potential “options” as a legal strategy to
respond to IRAC’s request for documentation relating to that tax payment
incident.
IRAC
had ordered the Buddhist corps under investigation to cease purchasing
properties. The monks and nuns and lay Bliss and Wisdom followers soon
found a work-around (illegal mind you) that I’ll have a lot more to say
about in subsequent episodes in this Monkileaks series.
The email to Grain Essence and Splendid Essence from their lawyer resulted in instructions to go with option #2, the significance of which I’ll not get into here. That decision was made for those two Buddhist corporations by a GEBIS monk, who apparently made the same decision and choice of legal response for all 5 of the Buddhist corporations, notwithstanding the different lawyers involved to maintain the appearance of independence.
It should also be pointed out that Master Zhenru was the owner of Splendid Essence and Director of Grain Essence at the time the IRAC investigation began in 2015, but for obvious reasons, removed herself at some later point and no longer appears as the owner and/or director of either corporation.
It was in that email to Grain Essence and Splendid Essence that I learned the payment was made using cash:
“As payments were made by cash, and the Order [from IRAC] requested copies of cheques, copies of confirmed cash payments are not being provided.”
Perhaps that’s part of the explanation IRAC might eventually give us as to why they took no action against the Buddhists when they closed the file on the investigation – maybe they went along or agreed with the Buddhists’ lawyers that it (IRAC) did not have the legal right to obtain the tax information documents, and without that information, could not show on paper what they knew in their heads, might as well just drop it and go with “mum’s the word”.
The fact that the folks at IRAC who were involved [likely Doug Clow and Scott Mackenzie] had already learned what they needed to know to take action in accordance with the Lands Protection Act seems not to have been considered important since no action was taken.
+++++++++++++++
Will the Green Opposition members be asking Government what they intend to do about this situation regarding the illegitimate land purchases of thousands of acres by the Buddhists? And IRAC’s failure to properly deal with the matter when it was investigated, but then kept secret?
As I estimate it, Bliss and Wisdom Corporation [through it’s various “children” organizations, nuns, monks and laypeople] owns somewhere in the vicinity of 7,000 acres over the limit established by the Lands Protection Act, and I believe that’s something our closed-lipped CEO and Chair of IRAC, Scott MacKenzie, knows!
When the CEO and Chair of IRAC can throw a temper tantrum and shout down an MLA for simply asking why IRAC didn’t investigate a situation that should have been investigated (Brendel Farms) or whether an investigation ever took place (GEBIS, GWBI), the system is clearly broken and needs a major overhaul!
Why IRAC – MacKenzie and Clow – kept the Buddhist investigation under wraps and did nothing to remedy the problem, despite what I believe is clear evidence of fraud and the wanton circumvention and abuse of our law, remains a mystery to me.
Regarding the Brendel Farms fiasco, however, some Islanders believe IRAC never initiated an investigation on its own because Scott MacKenzie was a long-time senior partner of Stewart McKelvey, and Stewart McKelvey [Geoff Connolly] was acting as Irving’s legal counsel on the deal (notwithstanding also being the PEI Government’s main outside legal counsel [e.g., CMT lawsuit]).
In retrospect, with the appearance of a conflict of interest, Scott MacKenzie may not be the best person to be deciding on how much public concern is sufficient to “trigger” an IRAC investigation when it comes to Irving land purchases.
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=542615857
Kevin J Arsenault
Intro
Arsenault, Kevin J.
Correctional Programs
St. Patrick's
Pastor: Rev. Danny Wilson
Visit us:
32 Father Brady Lane
Fort Augustus, PE
Mail us:
St. Patrick's Church
PO Box 24073
Stratford, PE
C1B 2V5
Phone: 902-583-2095
Website: https://3saintsparishes.ca/
How Buddhist nuns are building bridges in wake of monastery controversy
Dive into the recent history of Buddhist nuns on P.E.I. in a new Atlantic Voice documentary
"One question is what we do in the monastery and what the day is like in the monastery," said nun Venerable Joanna. "That's probably one that we get asked most often."
"And, 'Why did you come to P.E.I?'" added nun Venerable Sabrina.
Sabrina — originally from southern California, although she's been on the Island for seven years — understands that natural curiosity.
"If I was an Islander ... I'd probably have the same question too, because you wouldn't expect Buddhist nuns to be living in Atlantic Canada," she said.
Atlantic Voice 26:16
Sabrina and Joanna are a few of the Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute nuns who take on public-facing duties, an effort in part to build bridges between the Buddhist and non-Buddhist communities.
While the nuns have been living in Uigg, a small community near Orwell, for about a decade, that need to build bridges has become apparent in recent years as the Buddhists' efforts to expand have come under scrutiny.
Community questions
In 2018, with about 500 nuns on the Island, the Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute announced plans to build a vast monastery complex on its property in Brudenell. The proposal sketched out space for 1,400 nuns on a sprawling 121-hectare campus.
That plan passed through the provincial government, but hit a snag in September 2020. At a public meeting in Three Rivers, the community in charge of issuing the complex's building permit, the proposal became a lightning rod for community tensions.
"You could cut the air with a dull knife," said David Weale, an Island historian and retired UPEI professor who attended the meeting. "Because people were up in arms. It was a very large meeting."
The mayor of Three Rivers at the time, Edward MacAulay, said there was negativity in the air and the motion to issue the permit was defeated.
"The one concern that seemed to be prevalent was land," said MacAulay.
Weale said he had been raising questions around land being bought by the Buddhists — there is also an associated community of monks, along with the nuns, in the area — but that he had "encountered nothing but an atmosphere of secrecy."
Venerable Sabrina remembered being surprised at the proposal's reception at the meeting.
"I thought we had done things for the local community in terms of like, doing presentations and visiting different people in the community, and answering questions," she said.
The
nuns have returned to giving free in-person mindfulness sessions, as
seen here in Charlottetown in November 2022, in conjunction with the
Sisters of Martha. (Janna Graham/CBC)
Building bridges
About a month after the 2020 meeting, the nuns appeared before a provincial government committee to answer questions about their activities on P.E.I.
During that investigation, the nuns said they had, at times, been ignorant of local knowledge. They also did not appeal the Three Rivers' permit decision, instead focusing on community outreach.
In 2021, the Brudenell monastery proposal got the green light, and is now under construction. The nuns' community outreach has also grown: they lead mindfulness sessions around P.E.I. and take part in traditions like trick-or-treating.
"I think people are starting to know our intentions a little better it seems. And I think we've learned a lot about what community means within P.E.I.," said Venerable Joanna.
Corrections
- An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that the provincial government led an investigation into the organization that oversees the nuns and the monks. In fact, the nuns appeared before a government committee to answer questions.Jan 23, 2023 10:00 AM AT
With files from Janna Graham
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-buddhist-nuns-residence-1.6066735
Buddhist nuns grateful to have 170-dorm residence in Brudenell approved
Application had been denied 9 months earlier
Nine months after their initial application was denied, nuns at the Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute received unanimous approval Monday from Three Rivers town council to build their 170-dorm residence in Brudenell, P.E.I.
Instead of appealing the earlier decision, the nuns focused on improving communication and building relationships with people in the community, and address the concerns that led council to vote 7-3 against their application in September 2020.
Venerable Yvonne Tsai said the nuns were "grateful" to have their building permit approved.
"It was a great learning journey for all of us. It reminded us how important communication is and then how important it is to work with the local community hand in hand."
'They were very conciliatory'
One of the concerns from the community was the amount of land and homes purchased on P.E.I. by families of the nuns, which may sit empty when they aren't visiting. Some residents feared this would deny Islanders opportunities to purchase homes in the area.
It reminded us how important communication is and then how important it is to work with the local community hand in hand.
— Venerable Yvonne Tsai
Ed MacAulay, mayor of Three Rivers, said he spoke with the families of some of the nuns via Zoom over the past few months and they were "horrified" that they were causing concerns for local residents.
"They said, 'Well we don't want that, we don't want them to think we're taking their homes and so on so we will put them back on the market and do whatever it takes,'" MacAulay said.
"So they were very conciliatory and wanted to make sure the local people were not being jeopardized by the parents of the nuns because the nuns, this is their home and they really love it here. And just like any parents, [they] want to see their children doing well."
The new residence will be the second on the property in Brudenell, and will allow the 450 nuns on P.E.I. to all live in the same area. The nuns have been living in eastern P.E.I. for more than 10 years. Currently, they are spread out among residences in Brudenell, Uigg and Lower Montague.
The
long-term plan for the Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute property in
Brudenell includes a multi-million-dollar monastery to accommodate up to
1,400 nuns and students. (Shane Ross/CBC)
The new residence is part of a long-term plan to build a multi-million dollar monastery for up to 1,400 nuns to study Buddhism. It could include public gardens and a playground for children in the community, Tsai said.
"We hope that we are not just building our own home. We hope that we can have some of our areas open to the public and right now we're still discussing with our neighbours as to what they would like to see happening in the community."
September start date
Work is expected to begin on the new residence in September.
That's good news for the community, MacAulay said. He said it was a different atmosphere Monday night than it was nine months ago, and that many people in the Montague and Brudenell area came out to support the nuns.
"They just bring a real, in my opinion, a real peacefulness to this area and they're a real pleasure to have in our community."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-nuns-government-committee-1.5764004
Buddhist nuns living on P.E.I. appear before legislative committee
'Especially in the first few years we were here, we did overpay for some properties'
A group of Buddhist nuns appeared before a committee of the provincial legislature Thursday to answer questions from politicians about their activities and plans on P.E.I.
Nuns from the Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute have made their home on the Island for a decade. They've grown now to 500 people living on properties in three eastern P.E.I communities. Their average age is 29.
A month ago, Three Rivers town council denied them a permit to build a new dormitory for 200 more nuns on their property in Brudenell. It's part of GWBI's plan to build a monastery that can accommodate 1,400 nuns to come study Buddhism. The council cited concerns about what those expansion plans would ultimately mean for housing and land in the area.
The three nuns who spoke to the legislative committee Thursday said those concerns come from misunderstanding. They blame themselves for not doing more to build trust with the community.
"Islanders are not thinking of us in a bad way — it's just we're very new here. We're very foreign, and we're not the best storytellers either," said Venerable Yvonne Tsai. "And then we're being too quiet the past few years. So I think it's our responsibility to go and be visible and explain that."
Committee
members Steve Howard and Darlene Compton listen to the nuns'
presentation Thursday at the Coles building in Charlottetown. (Steve Bruce/CBC)
The nuns told the committee that GWBI owns 667 acres of land — 183 in Vernon River and 484 in Brudenell. Of that, 290 acres are in agricultural production, 366 are natural areas such as forests and gardens, and 11 acres are being used for infrastructure or buildings.
One of the concerns raised at the Three Rivers council meeting in September was that GWBI has purchased some houses that are sitting empty. The committee echoed those concerns.
I feel it also unfair to think we're a bunch of a rich and heartless criminals coming to take over.
— Venerable Yvonne Tsai
"We have a housing shortage, and when we see a bunch of vacant houses, it is a concern," Darlene Compton, P.E.I.'s minister of finance, told the nuns during the meeting.
The nuns explained the institute owns seven homes in Brudenell that are used for institute activities and seasonal accommodations.
There are other properties — they didn't say how many — owned by some of the nuns' family members, who are only able to stay on P.E.I. part of the year. The nuns acknowledge they need to work out how to have family close by without contributing to the housing crunch.
Venerable
Joanna Ho, left, Yvonne Tsai, centre, and Sabrina Chiang from the Great
Wisdom Buddhist Institute spoke to a government committee Thursday
about the group's plans to expand their monastery in eastern P.E.I. (Steve Bruce/CBC)
'We did overpay'
And they did say they have made mistakes, from which they are trying to learn.
"We're not saying Buddhists are perfect and don't make mistake[s]," Tsai told the committee."Sometimes we can be ignorant because we lack local knowledge. But after reading some online comments, I feel it also unfair to think we're a bunch of a rich and heartless criminals coming to take over."
"Especially in the first few years we were here, we did overpay for some properties," Tsai told CBC News after the meeting. "And then we were told that some of the behaviours we did seemed like we're avoiding [the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission's] regulations. And all of those are something that we make sure that we have the proper knowledge, and make sure we don't ever do similar things again."
Yes, we pay taxes just like everyone else.
- Venerable Joanna Ho
The nuns addressed a question they said they get asked a lot.
"Yes, we pay taxes just like everyone else," said Venerable Joanna Ho. "Our property taxes are determined by the government, and the only parts of our facilities [that are] tax exempt are the prayer halls in Vernon River and Brudenell."
The nuns said they are still contemplating what to do next. But they said they realize it will take more buy-in from the community to reach their expansion goals.
"We hope this is the first of open communication and just getting to know our community and our community getting to know us," Ho said.
"We want to build the trust relationship, and at the same time, figure out a way for the Buddhist nuns to have a place to live," added Tsai.
There is also a community of Buddhist monks living in eastern P.E.I., in Heatherdale and Little Sands, under the Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society. Many of the nuns have brothers there.
With files from Steve Bruce
Buddhist nuns 'sad and disappointed' after council decision puts new monastery plans in limbo
Council meeting ran for 3 hours
Nuns at the Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute say they will decide in the next few days how to proceed with a new monastery in Brudenell, P.E.I., after Three Rivers council denied their building permit for a new dormitory.
More than 100 members of the public showed up for the town council meeting Monday night, which ran for more than three hours. Council voted 7-3 against.
"We are sad and disappointed with the decision, but we will make a decision once we have a chance to absorb the impact and consider the steps forward," said Venerable Angeline of GWBI.
"We have made eastern P.E.I. our home for over a decade."
Venerable Angeline says the Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute has received words of support from Islanders. (Tony Davis/CBC)
GWBI has one residence on the property, and were planning to build a second, two-storey residence to accommodate another 176 nuns beginning this fall. It's part of an overall, 10-year plan to build a monastery for 1,400 people.
"We're hoping we can make this place a pride of P.E.I. so people can come and study Buddhism if they are interested," Venerable Angeline said.
We're hoping we can make this place a pride of P.E.I.
— Venerable Angeline
Three Rivers Mayor Ed MacAulay said the decision to deny a building permit was the hardest decision the council has had to make so far.
He said the leading concern is about land use, and the continued affordability of land in the area. One of the issues raised is that the GWBI has purchased a number of houses that are now sitting empty.
"The big question was where is it all going?" said MacAulay.
"I think what the public would like to see is to see our council … sit down with the province and start working out some of these land issues and to make sure that, you know, the public, in our area in particular but in other areas as well, has an opportunity to express their concerns."
There are still opportunities for the Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute in Three Rivers, says Mayor Ed MacAulay. (Tony Davis/CBC)
Venerable Angeline said the nuns "share the same passion for the land" as those expressing concerns.
"We think it will need more communication to clear things up," she said.
"After the decision we have received a lot of words of support from communities and people across the Island, so with assurance that the statements of some doesn't reflect all how Islanders feel about us and our plans."
MacAulay said this is not necessarily the end of GWBI's plans in the area. The town is currently formulating an official plan.
"They will be consulted and they will be a part of that plan as we move forward because they are a part of our community."
With files from Kevin Yarr, Tony Davis and Laura Chapin
This is Google's cache of https://www.saltwire.com/nova-scotia/news/after-more-than-a-decade-why-is-there-still-a-controversy-over-the-pei-buddhist-community-556523/. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on 8 Mar 2023 06:23:22 GMT.
After more than a decade, why is there still a controversy over the P.E.I. Buddhist community?
A female nun prays
within the Uigg Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute Monastery. A picture of
late Master Jih-Chang can be seen on the left. - Stu Neatby
The story of the Prince Edward Island Buddhist community is practically a piece of 21st century Island folklore.
In the mid-2000s, a Buddhist religious community, with global members from Taiwan to Singapore, set out to find a home to train devout followers in a monastic setting.
They found Kings County, P.E.I., a rural place where farming and care for the land was still woven into the social fabric.
For some locals, however, curiosity soon turned to questions. Why would a group of devout monks and nuns from halfway around the world decide to come to P.E.I.?
Today, depending on who you ask, there are two contradictory stories to tell about P.E.I.’s monastic Buddhist community.
Maybe it’s the story of an immigrant community, loosely connected by a religious group, struggling to establish itself in a rural community, often encountering more nativism than Prince Edward Islanders would like to admit.
Or maybe it’s the story of a wealthy religious group that has taken advantage of P.E.I.’s lax oversight of agricultural land protection, driving up land prices in the process.
It is clear concerns about the two main organizations of the Buddhist community – the Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute (GWBI) for Buddhist nuns and the Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society (GEBIS) for Buddhist monks – have developed into a very real clash in Kings County.
"We felt a lot of kindness and a lot of welcome from the people that we talked to and people we meet," Venerable Joanna Ho, a member of GWBI, told The Guardian in an interview in February 2020.
"But there's this strange discrepancy with what we hear (and) then, through rumours in the media, that people seem to not want us here, not trust us."
If there was any doubt that these feelings were not significant, it was washed away in September 2020, when Three Rivers municipal councillors voted to deny a building permit for a monastic campus and dormitory for GWBI nuns in Brudenell. The campus would have provided enough housing for up to 1,400 Buddhist nuns and would have gone a long way to solving a housing crunch GWBI continues to face. In some cases, GWBI’s 470 nuns are crammed, eight to a room, in locations throughout the province, ranging from a converted farmhouse in Uigg to a former motel in Montague.
There is a debate within GWBI about whether the group should ultimately leave P.E.I. altogether.
The controversy around the Buddhist community is unique and it is not only about immigration. P.E.I. has seen immigrant communities successfully integrate in the past, including the Lebanese community.
To understand the ongoing clash, one needs to understand the internal dynamics of the Taiwanese-based religious movement that gave rise to both GWBI and GEBIS.
One also has to understand the ongoing struggles with ownership of P.E.I.’s most prized resource: farmland.
For all the controversy, the stated goal of GWBI and GEBIS is hard to argue with.
"We're a school that educates monks," Venerable Walter Tsai, who manages outreach and communications for GEBIS, told The Guardian during an interview in late January 2020.
"The mission of GEBIS is to nurture monastics.”
GEBIS runs two monasteries – one site in Heatherdale and one in Little Sands. GEBIS runs an extensive training program for male monks, based in part on the Lam Rim Chen Mo, a foundational 14th-century text of Tibetan Buddhism.
For GWBI, the goal is similar. But the organization’s focus on female postulants makes its presence unique outside of Asia.
Venerable Yvonne Tsai, a board member of GWBI and sister of Venerable Walter Tsai, said the curriculum is a rarity; there are few other options for educational programs for devout female Tibetan Buddhist nuns globally, she said.
Tsai described GWBI’s curriculum as “more like a Harvard in the Buddhist world.”
Like Ivy League institutions, it is not easy to be admitted. Before the pandemic, GWBI accepted about 10 new postulants a year. GEBIS accepted between 20 to 30 new monks per year before 2020.
Due to the denial of the Brudenell building permit, GWBI is once again turning down all new applicants.
The full curriculum of both organizations is not for the faint of heart; GWBI’s full curriculum takes 17 years to complete. For GEBIS, the curriculum can take 15 years to complete.
Venerable Yvonne estimated around 10 per cent of applicants are accepted into GWBI’s program. Applicants need to demonstrate they want to be a nun, that they want to help others, that they have family support and that they can self-reflect and think critically.
"You cannot come here because your parents told you to," Venerable Yvonne said.
It is no secret lay followers of the groups are often successful. Some are wealthy. Others, like Venerable Joanna Ho and Yvonne Tsai, grew up studying in Western countries. Most have some level of post-secondary education.
"Women that are attracted to coming to our monastery, they really like the curriculum. And generally, it's because our curriculum is very contemplative and logical," Ho said.
Both GWBI and GEBIS have plans to expand their current facilities to one day accommodate more ordained followers. But the experiences of GEBIS differ from that of GWBI.
Venerable Walter said while there are plans to expand the Heatherdale site someday, the group has enough land for its monastery at the moment. Some additional land may be needed for housing for short-term visitors. Due to the pandemic, these visits have been halted.
However, GEBIS is uncertain whether future land purchases will be blocked. Land purchases over five acres require approval by P.E.I.'s executive council under the province's Lands Protection Act.
A 2018 purchase of 20 acres of land, from a local farmer near the Heatherdale site, was rejected by the cabinet of the previous Liberal government. Members of GEBIS still do not know why.
GEBIS was granted a building permit for its ongoing construction at the Heatherdale site.
Venerable Walter said he hopes to see less division in the discussion about landholdings.
“I understand some of the concerns are legitimate, but I also found some of the questions come from misunderstanding,” Venerable Walter told The Guardian this week.
“I do believe GEBIS will benefit P.E.I., from the depth of my heart.”
Timing
Timing may not have been in favour of GWBI and GEBIS. Both groups established themselves in P.E.I. in the late 2000s and mid-2010s, a time when immigration and land ownership were controversial topics.
The Liberal government under Robert Ghiz faced several scandals related to the now-defunct entrepreneurship stream of the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP). PNP essentially became shorthand for political scandal.
Meanwhile, land ownership has been an ongoing controversy. The number of small family farms has been declining on P.E.I. for decades, while larger farming operations have begun consolidating more land.
Additionally, land and housing prices have spiked significantly in recent years.
Three Rivers Mayor Ed MacAulay said all of this has brought about heightened sensitivity about home and land purchases. Many Kings County residents think of their children who have left for work or school.
“I think the fear is that if the jobs come and the careers come, then maybe the kids will come back,” MacAulay said, referring to anxieties he comes across from others in rural parts of Kings County.
MacAulay said some people fear that children who have returned during the pandemic may not be able to afford to buy a house in Kings County.
For several years, the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) has been one group that has suggested the two Buddhist groups were circumventing the province’s Lands Protection Act, often comparing them with agricultural corporations like Cavendish Farms.
The Lands Protection Act (LPA), which limits corporate landowners to 3,000 acres of land, is a highly venerated piece of legislation designed to limit the land holdings of both large corporations and non-residents.
Islanders often believe corporations have circumvented the land size limits of the LPA, simply by purchasing farmland using different shell corporations. NFU district director Doug Campbell believes GEBIS and GWBI fall into this pattern.
"Call it whatever you want to call it — a corporation, a religion,” Campbell told The Guardian in November. “It comes down to following the spirit and the intention of the act. And if they're in violation of it then why would they be any different than the Irvings being in violation?"
Dalhousie researcher Jason Ellsworth, who has been studying both GWBI and GEBIS for years, says the controversies about the group are a reflection of ongoing local concerns. And few laws are as fiercely protected as the LPA.
"A lot of the social context of the people on P.E.I. are coming out — those that are protecting organics, those who want to protect farmland, those who want to fight the monopolies,” Ellsworth said.
“It tells us a lot about what's going on on the Island."
The Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission (IRAC) completed an investigation of the landholdings of GEBIS and GWBI in 2018, but the findings were never made public. Based on a publicly searchable database of land purchases, GWBI owns 667 acres of land while GEBIS owns 584 acres.
Why P.E.I.?
One reason for GEBIS and GWBI setting up monasteries in P.E.I. is simple: religious freedom in Canada.
Both GEBIS and GWBI grew out of Fuzhi, also known as Bliss and Wisdom. Bliss and Wisdom claims to have 60,000 followers worldwide, including 2,000 monks and nuns. It is considered to be one of six major “socially engaged” Buddhist organizations in Taiwan. Founded in 1987 by Venerable Jih-Chang, a disciple of the Dalai Lama, the organization took an active role in educational endeavours and social causes, including the promotion of organic agriculture.
Before Jih-Chang’s passing in 2004, he surprised many by appointing a young woman, a lay follower from Mainland China, as the spiritual leader of Bliss and Wisdom. She is known internationally as Master Zhen-Ru or Mary Jin, and currently lives in P.E.I.
Past media stories have reported that after the passing of Master Jih-Chang, Master Zhen-Ru travelled the world in search of a place to establish a monastic school. Singapore was considered for a time.
“She saw Canada as a place that’s open to diversity and religious freedom,” Venerable Dan, a monk from GEBIS, told P.E.I. reporter Lindsay Kyte in a 2018 story in Lion’s Roar magazine.
Another reason involved a desire to have Zhen-Ru close to training centres for devout monks and nuns.
A section of Bliss and Wisdom’s website states that, prior to his passing, Master Jih-Chang had instructed that monastics be under the “personal tutelage” of Master Zhen-Ru. But as Zhen-Ru was a Chinese national, travel to Taiwan was not simple.
“Even though legislation has loosened recently, it is however still very difficult for a Chinese national to stay in Taiwan for an extended period of time,” the website posting, from 2017, says.
Other concerns may have been a factor. Human rights groups have reported that Tibetan Buddhist organizations have faced restrictions on their movement and religious freedom in Mainland China.
GEBIS was first established in British Columbia as a charity in 2006. Another organization was later established in Toronto. But ultimately Prince Edward Island was chosen. GWBI’s website states that Zhen-Ru enjoyed the “serenity” of P.E.I., a place far removed from “bustling cities.”
P.E.I. may have offered something else: peace and quiet.
"She doesn't want to be famous," Tsai said in an interview in January 2020.
"She told us that her dream for this life is to live in a cave and just meditate all the time."
Zhen-Ru is very likely the only leader of a global religious movement to live on P.E.I.
An economic gift horse?
In the ongoing controversy around landholdings and the motivations of GEBIS and GWBI, what is often lost is a legitimate argument that the presence of these organizations could benefit P.E.I.
One significant focus of lay followers has been the promotion of organic agriculture. The founder of Bliss and Wisdom, Master Jih-Chang, helped establish several social enterprises geared towards promoting organics, including the Tse-Xin Organic Agricultural Foundation in Taiwan, which provides an organic accreditation testing system in Taiwan. As of 2010, there were 433 farms in Taiwan that had obtained this accreditation.
Lay followers in Taiwan have since also established Leezen grocery store chains across Taiwan, providing a significant market for organic goods. This social enterprise is not directly owned by Bliss and Wisdom but is operated in line with Buddhist beliefs. There are about 130 such stores in Taiwan and 29 worldwide.
A similar business run by a lay follower of GEBIS in P.E.I. is Grain Essence Incorporated, which owns the local Leezen grocery store on University Avenue in Charlottetown.
Ellsworth says the group purchases Island-grown organic soybeans from local farmers and ships them to Taiwan to produce soy milk.
Ellsworth, who travelled to Taiwan and met with the president of Leezen, said the stores overseas often proudly display Canadian and P.E.I.-produced goods, including soy products, cranberries, Canadian flags and blueberry jam.
"They're of course proud that it comes from P.E.I.,” Ellsworth said.
“P.E.I. is presented as this pristine landscape where organic produce is being created … but also because where the food comes from is somewhat geographically close to their current leader.”
GWBI and GEBIS have also offered significant purchasing support for organic growers in P.E.I.
"They were our biggest organic customers last year,” Brian MacKay of Crystal Green Farms told The Guardian in November.
“They don't want a whole lot of noise and flack for the things they do. But they are supporting a little more than maybe they're getting credit for."
“I know there's some concern around the acreage they're getting to own. But if we don't accept a nunnery, I'm not sure just what would be good enough for us,” he added.
The interest in P.E.I. from Bliss and Wisdom’s Taiwanese followers has also been a boon to P.E.I.’s tourism market.
Between 2013 and 2018, overnight visitors from Taiwan jumped from 58 to 3,065 according to Tourism P.E.I. These visitors pumped at least $2.25 million into the local economy. This increase is very likely linked to the GEBIS and GWBI communities.
Ellsworth’s research shows that GEBIS has been donating significant amounts of locally grown food to food banks on the Island since at least 2015. A quick perusal of the group's About Monks Facebook page demonstrates that this has continued throughout the fall and winter.
Overall, the questions surrounding the landholdings of both GWBI and GEBIS will likely persist in the future. But so too will claims from the groups’ leaders that they hope to be a net positive for the Island.
Venerable Yvonne, who has lived on P.E.I. for more than a decade, told The Guardian: “People ask us 'what's your endgame?'
"I just want to make the Island home."
Stu Neatby is The Guardian's political reporter.
https://www.facebook.com/aboutmonks
https://gebis.org/
Prayers from GEBIS Monks
In light of the recent pandemic, monks have recently added 1 more hour of prayers on top of usual routines.
And we hope our prayers can reach out to everyone who has been affected by the current situations at hand.
And we’ve also decided to allow anyone to write down the names of those you want us to pray for. Their names will be included in the prayers.
So feel free to fill in the form by clicking on the link provided below!
https://forms.gle/jfL5f9SC1yGYLg7L9
And we would like to share with you a part of our prayer that really resonate with us. There are 9 verses.
Hopefully you’ll like it!
May all beings everywhere
Plagued by sufferings of body and mind
Obtain an ocean of happiness and joy
By virtue of my merits.
May no living creature ever suffer,
Commit wrong or ever fall ill.
May no one be afraid or belittled,
Or their minds ever be depressed.
And may the blind receive their sight,
And may the deaf begin to hear.
May those whose body are worn with toil
Be restored on finding repose
And may the naked now be clothed,
And all the hungry eat their fill.
And may those parched with thirst receive
Pure waters and delicious drink.
May the poor and destitute find wealth,
The haggard and the careworn, joy.
May those who despair be inspired
And imbued with enormous fortitude.
May there be timely rains
And bountiful harvests;
May all medicine be effective
And wholesome prayers bear fruit.
May every being ailing with disease
Be freed at once from every malady.
May every sickness that afflicts the living
Be wholly and forever absent from the world.
May those who go in dread have no more fear.
May captives be unchained and now set free.
And may the weak receive their strength.
May living beings help each other in kindness.
For as long as space endures
And for as long as living beings remain,
Until then may I, too, abide
To dispel the misery of the world.
About Us
Vision and Mission
Our Vision
Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society (GEBIS) is both grateful and honoured to call Prince Edward Island, Canada, its home, a place beautiful not only for its landscapes, but even more so for its people.
We believe that by learning and practicing Buddha’s wisdom, we can achieve long lasting and far reaching positive impacts in the world. Read more…
Education
Scriptural learning
“All living beings long to have peace and joy in their hearts. The Buddha has already shown us the way to achieve it, and that is through ethical discipline.” ~Master Zhen Ru Read more…
Monastic Life
Inside the monastery
An Overview of the Daily Life of Buddhist Monks
In the monastery,
the purpose of the daily schedule is to help a monk maintain good
physical and mental conditions for learning and virtuous practice.
Everything from classes, to prayers and prostrations, to chores, even to
eating and sleeping – it is all part of a good day of learning and
spiritual cultivation!
Read more…
Outreach
A Place like Home
It is not at all uncommon for people to praise PEI for its natural beauty. For us, even more beautiful than the island’s landscape, are the hearts of its people. Sincerity, care, selflessness – these qualities shine within every friend and neighbor that we have come across. There is a saying, “The true value of life is making others happy”, and their actions truly embody these words. We are inspired and grateful to be a part of this wonderful community, to share and pass on this beautiful virtuous spirit together.
For more information, you can follow us on About Monks(Facebook)
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-monks-nuns-tcap-1.3795616
Buddhist monks and nuns help 'scrub the tub' at Montague fitness facility
'The amount accomplished was nothing short of phenomenal,' reads a Facebook post
The Town and Country Aquatics Plus (TCAP) facility in Montague got help "scrubbing the tub," thanks to monks from the Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society and nuns from the Great Wisdom Buddist Institute on Thursday.
This week, the board of TCAP officially took over the centre from the private business that had previously been managing it.
The facility needs maintenance — inside and out. (Ming-Chi Hsu)
The board is currently focusing on much needed renovations and upgrades.
As part of Scrub the Tub, volunteers will spend the next two weeks doing extensive cleaning and renovations to the facility.
The facility organized the Scrub the Tub campaign, where volunteers do extensive cleaning and renovations. (Ming-Chi Hsu)
On Facebook, TCAP expressed "profound gratitude" to the monks and nuns for their help on Thursday.
"The amount accomplished was nothing short of phenomenal," reads a Facebook post.
"The facility was full and there was such a feeling of determination, hard work and peace in the air."
"The amount accomplished was nothing short of phenomenal," reads a Facebook post from TCAP. (Ming-Chi Hsu)
TCAP
hopes with the renovations and upgrades, it will become the "the
premier wellness facility in Prince Edward Island within five years." (Ming-Chi Hsu)
The work was done under clear, sunny skies. (Ming-Chi Hsu)
The monks and nuns picked up their paintbrushes to give the facility a fresh look. (Ming-Chi Hsu)
Maintenance on the facility has fallen by the wayside over the past 12 years, due to financial trouble. (Ming-Chi Hsu)
TCAP expressed "profound gratitude" to the Buddhist monks and nuns for their help. (Ming-Chi Hsu)
Island Buddhist monks welcome public to new Charlottetown centre
Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society leasing second-floor space on Queen Street
The Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society (GEBIS) has opened a
public Buddhist centre on Queen Street in Charlottetown, simply called
GEBIS Charlottetown. Geoffrey Yang, executive secretary with GEBIS, said
it's a place people can go to read a book, have a chat, study or
mediate. It's open afternoons and evenings on Wednesdays and
Thursdays, as well as Saturday and Sunday afternoons.
CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. – Buddhists on the Island are opening their doors to the public.
The Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society (GEBIS) recently leased some second-floor space on Queen Street where it is going to be opening a community centre.
The charitable organization is based out of eastern P.E.I. where it operates a monastery and private retreat centre that is not open to the public on a daily basis, except for the annual open house in May.
“Since the arrival of the Buddhist monks in P.E.I. in 2008, locals have been requesting to learn about the Buddhist philosophy,’’ said Geoffrey Yang, executive secretary with GEBIS.
With that in mind, the monks have offered some Buddhist courses in Charlottetown over the past eight years in rented spaces in different locations, such as UPEI and downtown Charlottetown.
“After years of trial and search, we finally decided to lease a space in Charlottetown as a more stable venue to hold classes and engage more in the community.’’
The community centre, called GEBIS Charlottetown, is located at 133 Queen St. (next to Casa Mia Café) on the second floor.
The centre will be open to everyone on Wednesday and Thursday in the afternoon and evenings as well as on Saturday and Sunday during the afternoon.
Yang said the objective is to help those interested in learning more about Buddhism, about the philosophy and its application to daily life. Through a variety of courses, people can apply and practise these concepts “and become more mindful and happier.”
Currently, GEBIS Charlottetown has two courses to offer. There’s one for beginners who just want to learn about basic Buddhism and one for more advanced practitioners who attend the weekly study groups.
The beginners’ course is a six-week program that takes place each week. Each class is about 90 minutes and teaches basic concepts about Buddhism, such as harmonious relationship, mindfulness, compassion and meditation. These classes also run on Wednesday and Thursday evenings.
Everything is offered free of charge, although donations are accepted.
“We have received a lot of requests for meditation in order to reduce stress and cultivate mindfulness. We plan to launch a meditation course soon. It will include a dharma talk about the concepts and techniques about meditation and a guided sitting meditation.’’
GEBIS Charlottetown also plans to organize events such as an exhibit about Buddhist art and culture, a movie night, cooking class and more.
So far, the reaction has been positive.
“People who have been attending study groups have said they feel like it’s like home to everyone who can come by and read a book, have a chat, study or meditate anytime,’’ Yang said.
49 comments
- Reply
- 3h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 1h
- Edited
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 1h
- Reply
- 1h
- Reply
- 1h
- Reply
- 1h
- Reply
- 1h
- Reply
- 1h
- Reply
- 1h
- Reply
- 1h
- Edited
- Reply
- 51m
- Reply
- 50m
- Edited
- Reply
- 49m
- Reply
- 48m
- Reply
- 43m
- Reply
- 37m
- Edited
- Reply
- 32m
- Reply
- 27m
- Reply
- 21m
- Reply
- 3m
- Reply
- 3h
- Edited
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 3h
- Edited
- Reply
- 3h
- Reply
- 1h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 1h
- Reply
- 4h
- Reply
- 3h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 53m
- Edited
- Reply
- 49m
- Reply
- 3h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 3h
- Reply
- 3h
- Reply
- 3h
- Reply
- 3h
- Reply
- 40m
- Reply
- 3h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 1h
- Reply
- 3h
https://www.facebook.com/david.weale.1
David's Post
- REPORT ON THE MEETINGI'm just getting home after a long day. But here is a synopsis.The hall was packed and there were probably 150-200 turned away, most of whom listened from their cars in the parking lot. Great speeches from Doug Campbell and Shane MacDonald.Some politicians there...Cory Deagle And Darlene Compton, and also, surprisingly Wayne Easter. There was at least one Green candidate there and I think a couple of Island party candidates. Denny did not show, and neither did Bevan-Baker. I also heard that Paul MacNeill arrived late and couldn't get in. The Guardian was there but not CBC. Greg Mercer, the Globe and Mail investigative reporter came all the way from Toronto, but local CBC couldn't send someone from Charlottetown. Some of us met with the Globe reporter for a couple of hours after the meeting and apparently he is returning for a couple of weeks in April.Today was good...created camaraderie and definition for our movement...stay tuned going forward -- right now I got to get to bed.
64 comments
- Reply
- 3h
- Reply
- 3h
- Reply
- 3h
- Reply
- 3h
- Reply
- 3h
- Reply
- 3h
- Reply
- 3h
- Reply
- 3h
- Reply
- 3h
- Reply
- 3h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 1h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 1h
- Reply
- 1h
- Reply
- 1h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 2h
- Edited
- Reply
- 1h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 1h
- Reply
- 46m
- Reply
- 37m
- Reply
- Remove Preview
- 33m
- Reply
- Remove Preview
- 28m
- Reply
- 21m
- Edited
- Reply
- 5m
- Reply
- 2h
- Reply
- 1h
- Reply
- 1h
- Reply
- 1h
- Reply
- 1h
- Edited
- Reply
- 51m
- Reply
- 1h
- Reply
- 37m
- Reply
- 1h
- Edited
- Reply
- 1h
- Reply
- 1h
- Reply
- 1h
- Reply
- 1h
- Reply
- 1h
- Reply
- 55m
- Reply
- 52m
- Reply
- 44m
- Reply
- 28m
- Reply
- 5m
- Reply
- Remove Preview
- 6m
- Reply
- 5m
Ruth KeefeThanks David Weale for all you are doing.Jean HughesEveryone is listening now an arduous accomplishment indeed. A rest well deserved.Jason MathesonThank you for coming out David WealeMary KaufieldThank you… rest well tonite….Flora ThompsonThanks for update. I can just imagine how tired your body and mind must be...Have a grand sleep.Erin PLVery exciting! This is how the ball gets rolling. More voices = bigger waves!
Louise HardyThank youBrent MacKinnonThank you David.Ann Marie TomlinsThank you for that short summary. Looking forward to hearing more.Julie Anne MacDonaldThank youJoe Mac DonaldThat's great keep up the good work...these people need to be stopped or they'll take over the whole islandVal MacsweenJoe Mac Donald iRAC needs to step upMaribeth DyckThanks Daviid.Jill VesseyThank you for all you’re doingBernadette MilnerThank you David!Afton BernardWas Michelle Beaton there ?Alan DawsonI can imagine the conversation when Darlene reported back to Denny.Alan DawsonLouise from CBC was probably meeting with Denny going through the debate questions.Stephen LeClairAlan Dawson or looking over her "mean girl" personal attack tweets about truckers. Ship her back to where she came from.Stephen LeClairAlan Dawson true story at the time. Greasy and unprofessional as it gets.Mary CondonThank you so much David and gang !!Leo MacDonaldGreat job davidSylvia MacKenzie WatsonThank you David. I tried to watch on line but it kept cutting in and mostly out.Loretta CampbellThanks DavidBrian PollardOur local CBC does not work on weekends or after five during the week.Stephen LeClairBrian Pollard Defund CBC news division.Brian PollardAlso the current bunch of NDP candidates are also allies.Kimberly Anne JestyThank you!Eric WagnerSurprise,surprise….CBC didn’t show.Great job folksSusan ClarkIt was very eye opening, thank you David for all the hard work you doLeanne MillmanIt was a very interesting meeting. Really opened my eyes to what is really going on with the land grabbing.Jeanne JacksonThe speakers were very informative..now let’s see if we get a debateJohn GallantJeanne Jackson I don't think a debate is what's necessary....we need action to be taken.David Raymond AmosJohn Gallant I disagree Public Debates are the keyJohn GallantDavid Raymond Amos not in this case...we need our laws enforced and transparency restored. You can't debate facts. We need pressure for answers and actions to enforce our laws of the lands and close any and all loopholes. No corporation or organization on PEI can lawfully own over 3000 acres. There are many other things that can be up for debate but for this one, the laws are already there.David Raymond AmosJohn Gallant Ask your buddy Wayne Easter about this debate before the LIEBranos won every seat in the Maritimes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cFOKT6TlSE
Fundy Royal, New Brunswick Debate – Federal Elections 2015 - The Local Campaign, Rogers TVYOUTUBE.COMFundy Royal, New Brunswick Debate – Federal Elections 2015 - The Local Campaign, Rogers TVDavid Raymond AmosJohn Gallant Ask you buddy Wayne Easter about this interview before the LIEBranos lost in 2006 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1azdNWbF3A...
Me,Myself and IYOUTUBE.COMMe,Myself and IDavid Raymond AmosJohn Gallant Never forget you are the one who enlightened me about the nuns and I went deep because I saw that it was a FEDERAL issue in a heartbeat Plus I heard some other old dude mention it during the meetingJohn GallantDavid Raymond Amos yep, the immigration side is definitely a federal one. The land side is a provincial one. I'll have a look at these once I get my farm chores finished up for the nightSuzanne Gallant-BeaganThanks David! Sleep well and get rested up for what's to come!Blair McKennaIt was a real eye opener, the meeting was well attended and I actually learned a lot from itShirley GallantThank you, David.Stephen LeClairThank you for your update and all your tireless work Mr. Weale.Willard DayI noticed Darlene Compton was amongst us.....not sure why she suddenly has an interest when she did nothing in the past 4 years regarding the illegal process used for land ownership by the monks and nuns.Karen KellyWillard Day Excellent question! Same goes for Bloyce Thompson.Jimmy HackettSharon Cameron? Liberal candidates?Karen KellyJimmy Hackett Liberals are not to be seen or heard on this.They were there back when this mess all started.They know all about it . No need for them to attend.They made the 'loopholes' that King Promised to close. Beware of promises in Red or Blue hot air.John GallantGreat job getting the information out in the public eye and raising awareness when the venues that should be doing so remained completely silent. You're a beacon of light to true journalism.Willard DayDavid, thank you for all your hard work....it should show Darlene Compton that she and Dennie haven't pulled the wool over Islanders. We're waking up! Great turn out. Well done David!Chris WallGreat job
Marcella CarotaThe Green caucus took part in a forum with CUPE and IUOE unions representing healthcare workers which is why Bevan-Baker was not there.Val MacsweenGood job David Wheale. Tried watching on line.Lorna MacpheeThankyou David. Great turnout and informative and thanks to you many are in the loop.Heidi MacDonaldAnyone know if their is a link to the meeting?Darrell ChaissonIslander of the year award should go to David Weale hands down.Shirley BradleyWhy could CBC from Charlottetown not send anyone ?Karen KellyShirley Bradley , Yes, Why? If someone at CBC knows, could they please explain it to us ?Shane BryantonShirley Bradley "racism"King makes it official: Prince Edward Island election to be held April 3DAVIDRAYMONDAMOS3.BLOGSPOT.COMKing makes it official: Prince Edward Island election to be held April 3Wendy Jordan-MainSo happy to hear David that today was a good day on this important issue. I’m definitely following it and had a bit of a conversation today with a local running in my district. Wasn’t impressed with his answers.Shawna RichardsWell done!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment