Instructors for Retreat
Bhikshuni Heng Chih On 19 June 1969, Heng Chih was initiated into Buddhist monastic life as a novice nun by Venerable Master Hsuan Hua at the Buddhist Lecture Hall in San Francisco, California, USA. In November, 1969, she became a fully ordained Buddhist nun, one of the first five Caucasian monastic disciples of Master Hsuan Hua. Thirteen years later, in 1982, she was granted permission to receive ordination a second time at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, with Master Hua presiding as Precept Transmitting Master. Heng Chih holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Translation, earned at Dharma Realm Buddhist University (DRBU). She is now a Professor Emeritus on DRBU’s teaching faculty, having retired from being an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Bond University, Gold Coast, Australia, where she taught Buddhist Philosophy for six years. She is a founding member of the Buddhist Text Translation Society (BTTS) and since its inception in 1971 has served on all its four committees, helping prepare English publications of Buddhist texts and Master Hua’s commentaries on Mahayana Sutras and Shastras. During her monastic life, Heng Chih has been a resident nun at several of Dharma Realm Buddhist Association’s monasteries and has lectured on Buddhism in many Asian countries. She is one of the world’s most senior Buddhist nuns and in her decades of service has helped train many others in the monastic way of life. |
Douglas Powers
Doug Powers holds an MA in Philosophy and Religion from the Graduate Theological Union and an MAT in Political Science from the University of Redlands. As an early Western disciple of Master Hua, he has served in many capacities in DRBA over the years, including administering a refugee program at CTTB, serving as principal of Instilling Goodness & Developing Virtue School Boys school and for the last five years, as the provost of DRBU. Versed in both Western philosophy and Buddhist thought, Doug is constantly pushing the edge of how Buddhism can be brought into contact with the “modern mind.” |