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The other theory places the origins in India when Suma Ching
Hai tried to buy a copy of the Hindu sacred text the Bhagavad-Gita in a shop along
the Ganges River. The shopkeepers said there were none
in stock, but she insisted that she had "seen" one. Then the
shopkeepers discovered a copy in a sealed box. She fled
sudden acclaim, but eventually assumed the role of The
Master.
Suma Ching Hai International Association is a sectarian splinter movement of Buddhism, but her ideas are considered to be too syscretic, encompassing ideas from many faith, to be consider a sect of Buddhist origin. According to Chua-Eoan, Suma Ching Hai's ideas are too radical to be considered Buddhist: "Master Chinhsing, a Buddhist monk of Vietnamese origin who may have been Ching Hai's mentor, disapproves of her departure from the austere ways of Buddhist tradition. He has reportedly warned her never to identify herself as his former student."
The goals of the Religious Movements Homepage are to (1) provide resources for objective understanding, (2) encourage appreciation of religious diversity, and (3) promote religious tolerance. The opportunity to pursue these goals is diminished when the language employed in public discourse silently carries highly negative presuppositions.
The concepts "cult" and "sect" have rather precise and technical meanings when used by social scientists who study religion, and they are employed free of normative or evaluative presuppositions. In popular discourse, the concepts usually imply highly negative connotations that cloud objective understanding while promoting prejudice (i.e. pre-judgment). The misunderstandings resulting from confusion of social science and popular meaning of these concepts has led us to the conclusion that the goals of this page are not well served by using the concepts "cult" and "sect" to identify specific groups profiled on these pages.
We do discuss the meaning of these concepts elsewhere on this site. Indeed, a major segment of the Religious Movements Homepage is devoted to the examination of cult controversies. Topics include popular culture and technical uses of the concepts cult and sect, the explosive issue of brainwashing or mind control, and an in depth examination of anti-cult and counter cult movements. We encourage readers to explore these resources.
Toward the end of promoting religious tolerance and appreciation of diversity, we encourage the use of concepts that are free of implicitly negative stereotyping. In place of "cult" and "sect," we recommend concepts like "new religious movements," "religious movements," or, simply "religious group."
Suma Ching Hai is reported to have approximately 2,000 members in California
Suma Ching Hai claims to be the reincarnated Buddha and Jesus Christ, and she combines the beliefs of Christianity with those of Buddhism. She attempts to teach her followers that all religions are teaching the same Truth, the "Divine Presence" within. She explains the importance of meditation, inner contemplation and prayer. She accomplishes teaching these "Truths" by her Quan Yin Method. The Chinese characters "Quan Yin" mean contemplation of sound vibration. The Method includes mediation on both Inner Light and the Inner Sound. Ching Hai teaches that the Christian Bible says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1) This Word is the Inner Sound. Master Ching Hai says, "It vibrates within all life and sustains the whole universe. This inner melody can heal all wounds, fulfill all desires, and quench all worldly thirst."
During initiation, the Master provides the "spiritual transmission" to the enlightened world. This event is sometimes called the "sudden" or "immediate enlightenment," because one may hear the Inner Sound and see the Inner Light. Suma Ching Hai accepts people from all backgrounds and religious affiliations for initiation, however, a lifetime commitment to a vegetarian diet is a perquisite for receiving initiation.
Keeping a vegetarian diet is important because Suma Ching Hai teaches that killing and violence, even to animals is bad. "So what we try to minimize is the violence in our heart, the tendency to want to destroy other beings."
Ching Hai's teaching against violence towards animals is very similar to Sikhism, but her meditation teachings resemble Buddhism, and her Catholic background enables her to incorporate Christian Bible teachings as well. After initiation, meditation daily for 2 and a half hours and keeping the Five Precepts are the only requirements.
The Five Precepts are:
Yet another goal of Suma Ching Hai is to teach her follows
to be self-sufficient
Spiritual Discovery
This is a gateway to considerable information about Suma Ching Hai and the
Quan Yin Method that is maintained by The Supreme Master Ching Hai
International Association.
www.godsdirectcontact.org
Links Page
A page of links to Suma Ching Hai and Quan Yin Method Web Pages
http://www.godsdirectcontact.org/eng/qylinks.html
Selections from the Teachings of Supreme Master Suma Ching Hai
This is another expansive page that appears to have been created by The Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association. It is nicely organized into several parts including: spiritual teaching, information about Ching Hai, the Quan Yin method, a news group, links, Real Video and Audio lectures, and information on accessing published information.
http://www.chinghai.com/home.html
God's Direct Contact: Ohio Center
A fairly small but attractive and informative page created by the Ohio Center of Quan Yin.
http://members.tripod.com/Godsdirectcontact
Religious Leader Felt Sorry For Clinton>
This CNN interview with Suma Ching Hai is the only public statement that we know of regarding the contributions of her group to President Clinton's presidential campaign. From this story one can access several other CNN stories on the relationship between the White House, Charlie Trie, and the infamous financial contributions after Vice President Gore visited the Suma Ching Hai Temple in California.
http://http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/01/09/ching.hai/
Rick Ross on Suma Ching Hai
This page from the anti-cultist site of Rick Ross provides access to several print articles about Suma China Hai. The content of most of the articles selected by Ross is not particularly flattering.
http://www.rickross.com/groups/suma_ching.html
The Bhagavad Gita: A Hindu Philosophy and Religion
This link provides a brief description of the history and the
contents of the Bhagavad Gita, dated from the third century
B.C. and the fourth century A.D., and how it relates to the
Hindu religion. The excerpt explains the origination of
some of the beliefs which Suma Ching Hai has incorporated
into her religion: the idea of the unity among religions
and the notion that God is present in all things. It also
includes selected readings from the actual text.
http://members.aol.com/Heraklit1/gita.html
Caiborne, William. "Self-styled Zen Master Has Attained Financial Nirvana" in the December 20,1996 issue of The Record. A40.
Chua-Eoan, Howard. "The Buddhist Martha," Time, Jan 20, 1997 p.47
Ibid.
Nissenbaum, Dion. "Sect Master a No-show, Rumors Had Ching Hai in Lake Elsinore," The Press-Enterprise December 31, 1996.
"Unusual Cast of Asian Donors Emerges in DNC Funding
Controversy," Washington Post, Jan 27, 1997.
Goldberg, Carey. "Cult-Like Group Linked to Refused Clinton Donations" The Commercial Appeal, December 22, 1996: 11A.
A prospectus is a preliminary statement of a work to be pursued. Webster defines a prospectus as "a statement that forecasts the course or nature of something not yet existent or developed." In the world of business, a prospectus is a statement about a product prepared for prospective buyers.
A prospectus should be written in a manner that will arouse interest on and engage the prospective client. In this instance, I am the client and I'm already interested in the product you are going to produce. What I need to know is that you are too, and that you have laid a foundation to accomplish the product that I hope you will present to me at the end of the term. I need to know that your project is under construction and not something you plan to work on at a later date when you get around to it.
Your prospectus should demonstrate to me, or any reader, that you have a plan that will produce a quality web site in a timely manner. The web page above is a mock up of a web site for a group that goes by the name of Suma Ching Hai. It contains all of the proper HTML mark-up codes you will need for your prospectus and most of the codes you'll need for your final product.
The preliminary page that you present as part of your prospectus should include a mock-up of:
In addition to the mock-up of your page and the inclusion of information described above, your Prospectus assignment should include a narrative about your product, what you have done thus far, and what you plan to do. The prospectus, thus, consists of two main part: (a) partially completed web page that shows the work you have done to date (your preliminary page as mocked up above), and (b) a narrative that states what you propose and how you plan to proceed with the task from this point. If you are experiencing problems that require some help, this is also the place to let me know.
Your prospectus should be fairly specific. For example, with respect to your print bibliography, you might say something like this: "I have searched Virgo, Amazon.com, and Barnesandnoble.com and found six items that are included in the bibliography. I also did some preliminary searching of electronic data bases in the library, mostly Infotrack. I plan to search various data bases including WebSPIRS, Infotrack, Religious Index, Dow Jones and Lexis-Nexus sometime during the next two weeks. By the time you prepare this report, you should have done significant exploration to locate resources and gotten into some serious reading about your group. Thus, you might comment like so:
"I have examined about ten web sites carefully and included seven (three with annotations) in my links above. Each of these should be of value in the preparation of my web page. I have relied primarily on the Google and Alta Vista search engines to this point since both produced considerable resources. I have looked briefly at a lot of other pages that appear to be the products of individuals. Many of them don't have much context beyond links to other pages."To date, I have not found pages that appear to be anti-cult or counter-cult pages. In the near future I plan to do some additional exploration utililzing at least two other search engines to make sure I am not missing anything significant.
"Of the seven book I have listed in my print bibliography, the one by Gresham Sykes that is clearly going to be very helpful in developing my history and belief sections. The only other book I think will be really valuable is by Stephen Nock. It is checked out and I have placed a recall notice. If it is not returned before I leave for Spring Break, I'll purchase a copy through Amazon.com so that I will have it to work with over spring break. I have located most of the basic demographic information for the Profile in Melton's Encyclopedia of American Religions and will cross-check that information against Sykes and the web based materials I locate.
"On preliminary search, the Infotract data base produced quite a few articles that appear to be useful. I want to do some more preliminary reading, but it is likely that I will downloaded five or six that will be helpful for writing the section on Contemporary Issues and Controversies. Since my group is headquartered in St Petersburg, I'll also be exploring the archives of the St. Petersburg Times."
In short, your prospectus should include both information about what you have done and what you plan to do. Be realistic in stating what you plan to do. Don't tell me you are going to do lots of things you know you'll never get to.
Another way of thinking about your prospectus is a work plan that lays out the whole project-- identifying tasks to be done, resources you need to do the work, and some target dates for completing the various components of your work. By mapping out the project, you will better see what it is that you need to do and, thusthere able to find blocks of time to assure that you complete the work on schedule.
If you have not already done so, you should carefully consult a memo entitled HTML Project Guidelines. This details as to my expectations for your finished product. It is especially important that you are aware of the necessity of documenting your work. I struggle each semester to get students to provide adequate documentation. As the number of visitors to our pages increases, so also do the inquiries about specific information. When someone writes and says a particular piece of information is wrong, it becomes my responsibility to find out whether that individual, or your work is correct. I can't do this if your work is not adequately documented. You will find that I pursue careful documentation quite aggressively. Inadequately documented work will be returned as unacceptable. As you proceed, create documentation just as you would for a law review article.
The Prospectus should be submitted electronically. Follow the instructions on the requirements page for this submission. [For Spring term, 2000, the revised schedule for submission is: March 2].
One final comment about the prospectus: IF your prospectus suggests to
me that you have not devoted adequate attention to the development your project,
or it is otherwise deficient, I may ask you to resubmit your prospectus and/or
require that you submit your final draft on the first of the three dates offered
for submission (see requirements page).
Jeffrey K. Hadden
Updated: 02/05/00
Created by [insert your name]
For Soc 257: New Religious Movements [or]
For Soc 452: Sociology of Religious Behavior
Spring Term, 2000
University of Virginia
Last updated: 03/13/00