In the South, the monk students temporarily dwelt at Vĩnh Tràng Pagoda, Mỹ
Tho, the abbot of which was Venerable Trí Long. After that Venerables Thiện Hoa, and Trí Quang also came to Lưỡng Xuyên to supervise the new school. Meanwhile, the young monk Trí Tịnh went to Kim Huê Pagoda, Sa Đéc, for a retreat. On June 19,1945, he took a lifetime vow, and received the bhikkhu's precepts at a ceremony held at Long An Pagoda,
Sa Đéc, which was presided by the Most Venerable Abbot of Kim Huê Pagoda.
With the August Revolution uprising in 1945, the Lưỡng Xuyên Buddhist Studies School was dispersed. Venerable Thiện Hoa returned to Phật Quang Pagoda,Trà ôn, Cần Thơ, where his brother Most Venerable Thiện Tâm was the abbot, and started to build a temporary new school. Bhikkhu Trí Tịnh left Sa Đéc for Phật Quang, and with Venerable Thiện Hoa, he began to gather monk students to build up Phật Quang Buddhist Studies School, which was to open at the end of that year. The majority of the monk students were newly recruited, because most of the previous monk students had to be dispersed here and there due to national insecurity. At the end of 1946 the local ethnic groups' uprisings forced the Buddhist school administrators to evacuate some monk students to Vạn
Phưóc Pagoda, Phú Lâm, Chợ Lớn. After that, with Venerable Huyền Dung, Bhikkhu Trí Tịnh
founded Liên Hải Buddhist Studies School, which attracted about 70 monk students scattered from all over the place. Venerable Đạt Từ from Thiền Tôn Pagoda,Thủ Đức, came to help as a supervisor. Bhikkhus Quảng Liên and Quảng Huệ also provided assistance. It was here that Minh Cảnh, a novice, received the major vows and became a monk. Bhikkhus Quảng Liên and Bửu Huệ also accepted major vows at the same pagoda. In 1950 Bhikkhu Trí Tịnh had to resign from administration responsibilities due to poor health, and retreated to Linh Sơn Ancient Pagoda in Vũng Tàu. Venerable Thiện Hoa who had returned from the North took charge of all the school administration. In 1951 Bhikkhu Trí Tịnh was elected to be the Abbot of Linh Sơn. In 1952 the South Vietnam Sangha Association (Giáo Hội Tăng Già Nam Việt) was established in Sài Gòn, and he was selected Head of its Education Department and its Vinaya Superintendent. Soon after that when the national Buddhist Sangha was established, he was again elected Head of its Education Department, and a member in the Tripitaka Translation Council, as well as Vice-Chief Executive of the Sangha. Because he had been given so many duties, he had to resign from abbotship at Linh Sơn Pagoda, and to delegate the duty to Venerable Tịnh
Viên until the latter deceased in 1995.
With Bhikkhu Trí Tịnh's strong aspirations for Buddhist dissemination, founding Buddhist temples and monasteries, and training for future generations of monks and nuns, he was respectfully invited to be the abbot of an ancient pagoda located in an isolated and remote area at Bình Đức, Tâm Bình, Thủ Đức District (Tam
Phú, Thủ Đức, Ho Chi Minh City nowadays). He rebuilt the pagoda there and named it Vạn Đức. Gradually, his reputation was spreading, and more and more monks and nuns came to live nearby and to learn the Dharma from him, forming a new Buddhist congregation called "Vạn Đức Congregation," which is well-known in the region.
In 1955 with a vow to teach sentient beings in a period of time when Buddhism was degrading and vulnerable, he established the Great Bliss Congregation of Buddhists, and taught them to chant names of Buddhas and to pray for entering the Pure Land after death. Following his teachings, this Congregation has sparked a movement of Buddhist practice which emphasizes the Pure Land as the realm to enter at the end of one's life. Thus he was the First Patriarch who renewed the Pure Land School in Vietnam. He mastered all Buddhist sutras, and oriental medicine. Thanks to his translations of Mahayana sutras, all Vietnamese monks, nuns and laypeople can understand these sutras. His translations are lucid and valuable. He focused on translating correctly, precisely, clearly, truthfully, and smoothly, so that the reader or the chanter may understand the core meanings and the implications in the sutras without any doubt about semantic ambiguity.
(To be continued)
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