Jungto Society, the international Buddhist community founded by the revered Korean Dharma master and social activist Venerable Pomnyun Sunim (법륜스님), recently conducted its 33rd annual pilgrimage across India and to Nepal. Held under the theme “Following in the Footsteps of the Buddha,” the pilgrimage, which ran from 19 January to 2 February, was attended by more 500 practitioners.1
This year’s pilgrimage was particularly notable for two reasons: the participation, for the first time in the Jungto pilgrimage’s 33-year history, of non-Korean practitioners: the 500-plus Korean Buddhist pilgrims were accompanied nine practitioners from Italy, Japan, Thailand, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Vietnam—some of whom are members of the the International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB), including two bhikkhunis from Thailand, while others are graduates of Jungto Society’s English-language Dharma School.2
Significantly, the pilgrimage also coincided with celebrations for the 30th anniversary of Sujata Academy, a remarkable community school and social empowerment project established by Ven. Pomnyun Sunim in Dungheswari, in the northeastern Indian state of Bihar, that has transformed the lives of an entire community of people who have faced systemic social and economic exclusion as a result of India’s conservative Hindu caste hierarchy.
Ven. Pomnyun Sunim established the international Buddhist humanitarian relief organization Join Together Society (JTS) as an expression of the compassion of engaged Buddhism and the belief that helping others is the best way to enrich one’s own life. Headquartered in Seoul, JTS operates four branch offices in South Korea and the United States, along with field offices in India and the Philippines. JTS Korea and JTS America oversee fundraising, while JTS India and JTS Philippines conduct development projects in cooperation with local communities. The relief organization has also earned Special Consultative Status to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
JTS India began its work in Dungeshwari, some 12 kilometers northeast of the Buddhist pilgrimage hub of Bodh Gaya, in the early 1990s, aspiring to fulfill the mission: “The hungry should eat; the sick should be treated; children should be educated in time.”
This region is surrounded by the Pragbodhi Hills where the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni, is said to have spent six years in a cave as an ascetic. And it’s here that JTS India has been working to empower the villagers in Dungeshwari to live their lives free from hunger, illiteracy, and disease.3
▶️ Published by BDG on February 14, 2024
▶️ Read more: https://www.buddhistdoor.net/news/special-report-the-hope-of-the-world-ven-pomnyun-sunim-marks-the-30th-anniversary-of-the-sujata-academy-project-in-india/
