Word: monke
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Another Gilded Monk...
...gilding of Chih Hang [June 8] is not the first, nor will it be the last such deification of a revered monk by a Chinese congregation. My favorite is that of Abbot Soong Chiu-cheng, who in death takes a much nicer picture than does Chih Hang...
Chih Hang was a Chinese Buddhist monk and widely known as a good man, but he feared that he might be unworthy of the faith his disciples placed in him. When, on Formosa, he felt death approaching, he called them together and gave them unusual instructions. "When I die," he said, "do not bury my body, but seal it in an urn. After three years, open the urn, and if my body has decayed, bury it in the ground. But if it has not, encase it in gold and place it in a pagoda...
...preserve the ancient Coptic language in their ritual, proudly point to the art and architecture of their monasteries and churches and to their long line of theologians and ascetics. To that line belongs the new 56-year-old Patriarch, who spent five years in the desert as a solitary monk, then, in 1936, rented an abandoned mill in Cairo (for 3? a month), fitted it with a homemade altar and started preaching. His reputation as a holy man grew, and eventually the faithful built him a small church...
...quick journey, and part of the fabulous Potala treasure was crated for mountain transport. On the morning of March 17, as tension rose in Lhasa, officials filtered from the palace in small groups, ostensibly to visit other monasteries. That night, dressed in the robe of a poor monk and without his customary glasses, the Dalai Lama left the palace as if taking a stroll, but he was shadowed by bodyguards. His mother and brother departed even earlier, by a different route, and rendezvoused with the main party outside the city...