The 2021 BLIA World Headquarters General Conference will be held virtually from 2nd to 4th October. A total of 104 members from the BLIA North Island and the YAD group signed up for the event, and they were actively involved in the preparations under the leadership of President Lintao Yu. On the morning of 26th September, the BLIA held a pre-conference briefing online with Abbess Manshin, Venerable Rulian, Venerable Miaoyu, and more than 60 members of the BLIA, including the president, advisors, and committee members from each Chapter.
The meeting was hosted by President Lintao Yu. Firstly, the technical team of BLIA North Island instructed the audience on how to log in, change their display name, and set their virtual background in the Zoom system. The second day of the conference is dedicated to a discussion between the Oceania and Western American associations. The BLIA North Island will participate in four topics: “Environmental Preservation and Vegetarianism for Carbon Reduction”, “Establishing Foundation for Education and Faith”, “Training and Fostering of Talents”, and “Legacy and Receiving of Young People”. Therefore, each Chapter will send out a representative to present, and this pre-conference was to brainstorm and practice for the presentation of the discussion session.
All the BLIA members are very excited about the upcoming world conference. “It was a good opportunity for North Island members to participate in the annual World Conference through ZOOM because New Zealand is still under the closure of alert level 3 due to the pandemic”, shared by Yuling Gu, the president of subchapter 3, and Pauline Young, president of subchapter 2. This is just like what Venerable Master Hsing Yun said, “Where there is Dharma, there is a way”. They expressed their gratitude to the Venerable Master and the FGS Buddhist Temple monastery, who always gave people hope.
