The famous Buddhist mendicant Thich Minh Tue, respected throughout Vietnam for his pious ascetic practice, has embarked on a pilgrimage to India. Accompanied by five other Buddhist ascetic practitioners, Thich Minh Tue left Vietnam for Laos on December 12.
The group will travel barefoot through several countries, including Laos and Myanmar, before entering India, Nepal and Bhutan. The sangha is guided and accompanied by lay followers and supporters.
Local authorities in Gia Lai province in central Vietnam, as well as national authorities, accused of restricting Thich Minh Tue's ascetic practice for security reasons, have finally given him permission to travel. The purpose of Thich Minh Tue's trip is to visit Buddhist pilgrimage sites in India and Nepal.
The idea of the pilgrimage was first suggested by government figures a few months ago in YouTube videos. However, at that time, Thich Minh Tue still insisted on practicing his traditional alms-giving tour. This caused difficulties for local authorities in his hometown, Gia Lai, as a large number of Vietnamese supporters admiring Thich Minh Tue traveled there to see him. Thich Minh Tue then officially announced in July that he would suspend his alms-giving practice.
Since then, however, there have been reports of people seeing Thich Minh Tue practicing in a restricted area of his hometown, under the guard of local police. His reappearance has once again attracted visitors. In November, local authorities released a handwritten letter from Thich Minh Tue confirming that he would stop his alms rounds to avoid unnecessary public gatherings and would resume when conditions were more appropriate. This suggests that Thich Minh Tue may have been pressured by Vietnamese authorities, as many people have claimed.
Although some consider Thich Minh Tue a "living Buddha", many others admire and respect him simply as a person who follows only the teaching of the Buddha, in stark contrast to the poor image of some Vietnamese monks in the modern sangha who live in luxury and enjoy their position.
Several recent scandals within the Vietnamese Buddhist community could be cited as reasons for Thich Minh Tue’s public popularity. These include the Ba Vang Pagoda fake hair relic scandal in 2023 and the monk Thich Chan Quang fake doctorate scandal, among other cases that appear to contradict the Buddha’s teaching. As a result, many Buddhist followers in Vietnam have turned their devotion and support to Thich Minh Tue to express their opposition to the contemporary Buddhist monastic sangha.
Distrust and anger toward Buddhist monks living in large temples – especially high-ranking monks of the Vietnamese Buddhist Sangha – has been growing for many years. Some monks have been accused of profiting from Buddhism and explaining the Dharma in erroneous and unethical ways.
The appearance of Thich Minh Tue, with his obviously sincere and strict practice of the 13 dhutagunas (Skt: austerities or ascetic practices), has had a positive impact on how the general public perceives and understands Buddhism. As a result, many Buddhists in Vietnam have changed the way they practice and apply Buddhist teachings. Instead of simply visiting Buddhist temples, they spend more time reading canonical texts and contemplating the Dharma.
Since Thich Minh Tue's emergence as a public figure, the phenomenon of unethical calls for offerings and incorrect Dharma teachings by some influential monks – particularly on the Buddhist view of causality – has diminished considerably.
See more
Hành trình đến Đất Phật của sư Thích Minh Tuần đi qua các quốc gia nào? (Dan Viet)
Sư Thích Minh Tuệ 'tự nguyện dừng đi bộ khất thực', tại sao? (BBC News)
Ông Lê Anh Tú (Thích Minh Tuệ) tự nguyện dừng việc đi bộ khất thực (TuoiTre Online)
Ông “Thích Minh Tuệ” thông báo ngừng đi khất thực (Người Lao Động)
Foreign Ministry verifies origin of 'Buddha hair sarira' (VnExpress)
Vietnam investigates monk doctor who never graduated from high school (FRG)
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The article Famous Vietnamese Buddhist ascetic Thich Minh Tue embarks on pilgrimage to India appeared first on Buddhadoor Global.
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