Earth and Space News: Thich Nhat Hanh, AIAB Hong Kong and Ajanta Cave Wall Paintings

Summary: Ajanta cave wall paintings in west India accept mindful meditations by Asian Institute of Applied Buddhism (AIAB Hong Kong) founder Thich Nhat Hanh.

golden-roofed Lotus Pond Temple (center) of founder Thich Nhat Hanh's Asian Institute of Applied Buddhism (AIAB) shares the lush vegetation of Hong Kong's Ngong Ping highlands with golden-roofed Po Lin Monastery (left) and 34-meter (112-foot) bronze Tian Tan Buddha statue (right); west central Lantau Island, southwestern Hong Kong, southern China: Wake Up Hong Kong at Lotus Pond Temple 蓮池寺, via Facebook Jan. 16, 2019

The aims of Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures in west India anticipate chanting, sitting, walking, working mindful meditations by Asian Institute of Applied Buddhism (AIAB Hong Kong) founder Thich Nhat Hanh.

AIAB Hong Kong brings together a mindfulness practice center that benefits, and a mindfulness training center that builds, a Buddhist Sangha (from Sanskrit संघ, "multitude") community. The 1,300- to 2,300-year-old caverns carved out of 64-foot- (19.51-meter-) high near-perpendicular volcanic basalt rock cliffs contain devotional, instructional, meditational Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures. The eight-year-old AIAB Hong Kong draws together the Lien Tri (Lotus Pond) Temple and the Truc Lam (Bamboo Forest) Temple monasteries respectively for nuns and monks.

Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures embellish chaitya (from Sanskrit चैत्य, "funereal mound, pedestal, pile") prayer halls and vihara (from Sanskrit विहार, "walking [hall]") monastery caves.

AIAB Hong Kong, founded April 28, 2011, features ancestors' and dining halls and the 150-seat Buddha Hall on the Lotus Pond Temple bottom and third floors.

AIAB Hong Kong founder Thich Nhat Hanh gets his own cottage on the path between the Lotus Pond Temple and the newer, smaller Bamboo Forest Monastery. His book Buddha Mind, Buddha Body guides the cooperative two-year Master of Applied Buddhism for AIAB Hong Kong and Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya (Buddhist University of Thailand) resident students. His Plum Village Tradition of lay and monastic instruction integrates AIAB Hong Kong with one Australian, one German, one Thai, two French and three American communities.

AIAB laity and monastics journey through chanting, sitting, walking, working mindful meditations at 5:00, 8:00, 14:30 and 19:30 (20:00, 1:00, 7:30 and 12:30 Universal Coordinated Time).

Perhaps Buddhist nuns kept overnight in monastery caves knelt on pradakshina (from Sanskrit प्रदक्षिण, "to the right turning") aisles alongside Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures.

Enlightened 35- to 80-year-old Siddhartha Gautama (from Sanskrit सिद्धार्थ, "successful" and गोतम, "light [dispels] darkness") led a 1,250-member Sangha of female and male laity and monastics. AIAB Hong Kong founder Thich Nhat Hanh memorializes the Sakyan Crown Prince (624?-544 B.C.E.?) mixing, as Gautama Buddha (from Sanskrit बुद्ध, "awakened"), sitting, walking mindful meditations. His 550th, as Siddhartha Gautama, after 549 bodhisattva (from Sanskrit बोधि, "enlightened existence") reincarnations, netted Gautama Buddha in 45-year mindful meditations throughout ancient India and Nepal.

Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures concurrently offer Gautama Buddha's Abhidharma (अभिधर्म, "higher doctrine"), Sutra (सूत्र, "[discourse"] thread") and Vinaya (विनय, "discipline"), organized around 80 B.C.E.

The AIAB Hong Kong Sangha performs mindful meditations within Ngong Ping Village's Chinese traditional architecture and with panoramic perspectives of 111.55-plus-foot- (34-plus-meter-) high Lantau Island hills.

Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures queue up amid the Sahyadri (from Sanskrit सह्याद्रि, "benevolent") Hill extensions and Waghora (from Sanskrit व्याघ्र, "tiger") River bend glen. Thich Nhat Hanh realized AIAB Hong Kong from the 1,500-square-foot (139.36-square-meter) Tsim Sha Tsui mindfulness practice center of Hong Kong's Kowloon Peninsula, Feb. 2009-April 10, 2011. Nothing suggests where itinerant artisans and merchants and resident and seasonal monks spread from and to once they stopped supporting Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures.

Perhaps the chanting, sitting, walking, working mindful meditations that AIAB Hong Kong founder Thich Nhat Hanh teaches once teamed with Ajanta cave wall paintings and sculptures.

AIAB's golden-roofed Lotus Pond Temple (Lien Tri) houses a Buddha Hall, which accommodates 150 attendees, on the third floor; sisters' residence on the second floor; and ancestors' hall and dining hall on the first floor: Jacky Yu with Lotus Pond Temple 蓮池寺, via Facebook Sep. 25, 2016

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

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Earth and Space News

Friday, May 10, 2019

Thich Nhat Hanh, AIAB Hong Kong and Ajanta Cave Wall Paintings

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