On June 14, CBC published an article regarding our Buddhist community in PEI.

OUR BUDDHIST COMMUNITY IS NOT PART OF CCP

• 1. We have never been—and are not—involved with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
• 1.1. Bliss and Wisdom participating in a religious exchange conference is not a profession of faith of its allegiance to the Chinese government.

  To assume that someone participating in a conference is a reflection of their allegiance is overly simplistic.

  In today’s politicized society, where the societal norm is to loudly declare one’s allegiance, by not picking a side one is assumed to belong to the “other party.”

  We choose to be nonpartisan so we can focus on increasing awareness of Buddhist teachings and to maintain the independence and integrity of our preservation work. Full stop.

  Has CBC done research on all the religious exchanges that Bliss and Wisdom participated in? Monks from the Bliss and Wisdom community regularly participate in religious exchanges. In 2023, they attended the International Sangha Forum hosted by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in India, where the Abbott was invited to speak right after His Holiness. Why didn’t CBC report on this? They also met with Pope Francis in 2023 at the Vatican City as part of a Buddhist delegation on an interreligious educational pilgrimage. Does this suggest the Bliss and Wisdom community is professing its allegiance to Catholicism? Why hasn’t CBC reported on the many Buddhist forums organized by the Taiwan government that Bliss and Wisdom has attended?

• 1.2. GWBI is not funded by the CCP.

  During our interview with CBC, we stated that 99.8% of GWBI’s donors are individuals. They contributed to 97.7% of GWBI’s total donations (latest figures as of 2024). These individuals are primarily our 80,000 Buddhist followers around the world (mainly Taiwan), including parents of our nuns, and individuals who wish to support our mission in preserving Tibetan Buddhism. It is an unfortunate oversight on CBC to have left out this important detail.

  Out of GWBI’s 2024 total donations, 67.2% is from Taiwan, 23.7% is from North America, 2.2% is from Hong Kong, 1.2% is from China, and 5.7% from Southeast Asia, Australia and other countries.

• 1.3. It is extremely clear to anyone who has interacted closely with the Bliss and Wisdom community that we preserve Tibetan Buddhist teachings: our website offers Tibetan Buddhist texts, Tibetan Buddhist masters have visited PEI regularly to give teachings, our monastics go to India annually to receive our precepts from His Holiness the Dalai Lama etc. Citing a professor who drew the conclusion that Bliss and Wisdom courses do not reflect Tibetan Buddhism detracts from the credibility of the sources cited by CBC. Please feel free to check out the online teachings we offer to verify.

  We gladly invite everyone who participated in this CBC article to attend our Buddhist classes to judge for themselves. Please email us at info@gwbi.org to sign up.

• 1.4. If the Bliss and Wisdom community was truly a CCP agent, do you think that Tibetan Buddhist masters (aged 89+ and 90+) would fly over 30+ hours to PEI regularly to pass the crowning jewel of their life’s work: treasured teachings to GWBI and GEBIS? Would His Holiness, who has dedicated his life to preserving Tibetan Buddhism, tell them that going to Taiwan and PEI are musts?
• 1.5 We are currently preserving Tibetan Buddhism in Chinese because the majority of the community is Taiwanese and the main language spoken by Taiwanese is Chinese. ‘Nuff said.

  In addition, we have translated teachings into English, French, etc. However, as we have mentioned previously, the training of a monastic translator takes at least 16 years. Currently, only a handful of monastics are fluent in these other languages so the main bulk of our efforts is in Chinese. Our aspiration is to preserve the Tibetan Buddhist teachings in as many languages as possible for future generations. This is not Sinicization.

• 1.6. Recognition from the Taiwanese government.

  The article seems to assume that the general Taiwanese population has been taken for fools for a long period of time. Over the years, the various nonprofits and social enterprises in the Bliss and Wisdom community have continuously received annual awards (see Footnote 1) from the Taiwanese government recognizing them for their contribution to Taiwan (with some being awarded for a consecutive 22 years). In addition, every year since 2013 (barring the pandemic years), Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has asked a few nonprofits and a social enterprise in Bliss and Wisdom to represent Taiwan in an annual forum held in the US organized by InterAction (the largest alliance of US based international NGOs).

  Would the Taiwanese government give such recognition to the Bliss and Wisdom community if it was a CCP agent?

  For the record: Candrakirti Light Monastery (part of the Bliss and Wisdom community) which was the subject of money laundering accusations has received the best outcome from an audit (an unqualified audit opinion) from KPMG (one of the Big Four accounting firms globally) since 2018.

LAND

• 2. We welcome IRAC’s land investigation called by Minister Myers and will cooperate with the government.
• 3. For the record, over the years, we have actively disclosed the land ownership of individual nuns with their permission. We have also stated that these nuns chose to buy land surrounding the monastery as they wanted to protect the greenspace and tranquility around the monastery. Please see previous CBC articles.
• 4. In addition, Buddhist nuns do not take a Vow of Poverty like Catholic nuns. We have precepts that help us limit our dependence on wealth and material comforts. However, Buddhist nuns can accept donations with the intention to aid in their learning and practice. They can also use their assets to support altruistic endeavours, such as safeguarding the environment.

TEACHER ZHEN-RU

• 5. We believe that the comments made by Kelsang Gyaltsen were based on his personal opinion; the actions of Bliss and Wisdom do not violate Buddhist principles. We would like to point out certain things:
• 5.1. Kelsang Gyaltsen’s basis for his stance is that Teacher Zhen-Ru is a layperson. He did not state that Teacher Zhen-Ru is linked to the CCP.
• 5.2. Throughout the history of Buddhism, there have been extremely prominent and important layperson leaders (e.g. Dromtön). During his time, Dromtön led monks and was the main person in passing Tibetan Buddhism down to future generations through his teachings.

  As our spiritual teacher, Teacher Zhen-Ru focuses her efforts on giving us Buddhist teachings. As Teacher Zhen-Ru has not been ordained, she does not confer precepts upon the monastics. As such, the monks and nuns in the Bliss and Wisdom community have continued and never veered from their tradition of receiving their monastic precepts from His Holiness the Dalai Lama since 1991.

  We welcome any inquiries on how we have followed Buddhist principles.

  Thank you for taking the time to read our statement. Please feel free to reach out to info@gwbi.org if you have any further questions.