History

Gold Sage Monastery - The Last Way Place Established Prior To Venerable Master Hsuan Hua's Passing into Stillness

Gold Sage Monastery (GSM) overlooks San Jose, capital of Silicon Valley -- the world's high tech power house. The secluded, tranquil way place has been serving the community since its establishment in the year 1995. The local faithful have profound dharma affinity with the Venerable Master. Their admiration for the Master's virtues and practices traces back to 1985. In 1987, the community took a further step in inviting the Master to speak sutras and dharmas in Mission College. To the lay Buddhists in the South Bay Area, these were unforgettable events, which subsequently gave rise to the Buddhist Study Group .

 

Since then, the Master, along with other dharma masters, often took the 4-hour trips by car, tirelessly travelled from CTTB to Mission College. There, the Master gave talks on methods of cultivation and gradually led the faithful towards the path of learning the proper dharma. To perpetuate the proper dharma so that it would take deep roots in the minds of the faithful, the lay Buddhists established a foundation, through which, they mailed gifts of the Chinese-English Sources of Wisdom to places around the world; in the mean time, the dharma voices of the Master's talks were televised and broadcasted weekly on Mondays through Fridays, leading to the rapid growth in lay people seeking refuge with the Master.

 

The Master subsequently founded the International Translation Institute in Burlingame, which became a monastery where Buddhists around the South Bay Area gathered and listened to talks on sutras and dharmas. The Institute facilitated The Master's increasing appearances in the lectures and talks, which benefited everyone in the audience.

 

Years after He taught and transformed San Jose disciples, the opportunity ripened for the Master to reach out to a greater number of believers via a local way place for Buddha dharma study. Prior to the Master's stillness, He purchased the site on which Gold Sage Monastery was founded, fulfilling the wish of the South Bay faithful. Formerly a school for the disabled and the challenged, it was turned into a way place by the Master, whose intention is to enable all beings to rid themselves of obstacles in body and mind.

 

GSM opens from 9am to 5pm. The Great Compassion Repentance assembly is held daily at 1pm except on Sundays, on which special assemblies are scheduled including sutra lectures, Buddha Name recitations, etc. Besides various activities propagating the dharma, GSM offers an Instilling Goodness Sunday School and an Elders' Dharma Study Group, in an effort to promote Buddhist education and in purifying the mind.